As the first appointed Culture Advisor to the International Olympic Committee, I am delighted to have started work with the Tokyo 2020 team on their Olympic and Paralympic cultural programme developments.
I spent some days in Tokyo assessing progress and observing the wealth of cultural activities taking place and being planned in the lead to and during 2020.
The main Tokyo 2020 cultural programme strands to date, that have also been publicly announced, include:
- A four year Cultural Olympiad participation programme, involving grassroots proposals from around Japan.
- The Nippon Festival, as the culmination of the Cultural Olympiad and the main Olympic and Paralympic cultural programme taking place in the lead to – and during – the Tokyo 2020 Games
- The Tokyo Tokyo Festival, led by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government so as to showcase ‘power of art’ in the Games host city
- Beyond 2020, a legacy oriented programme involving an open call for proposals across Japan, led by the Cultural Affairs Agency, with the aim of presenting Japanese culture to the world.
There is additional activity and programming being planned, for public announcement at a later date. Discussions between core stakeholders will focus on best approaches to coordinated branding and communications and I will be my pleasure to assist in this discussion, building on the experience of previous Summer and Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games hosts.