Alberta helping produce 2010 opening Ceremonies

Three Albertans will take lead roles in producing the opening and closing ceremonies at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.

Well-known Alberta Ballet artistic director Jean Grand-Maitre has been named the choreography director for the ceremonies, while Calgary composer Dave Pierce -- whose work is regularly featured at the Calgary Stampede's grandstand show --will be the show's musical director.

Theatre designer Leslie Frankish, born in Camrose and raised in Edmonton, will be one of two designers of the show.

For the talented Grand-Maitre, tackling the opening and closing Olympic ceremonies made a certain amount of sense. After all, his company, Alberta Ballet, will perform The Fiddle and the Drum, its internationally acclaimed collaboration with musical legend Joni Mitchell, as one of the star attractions of the 2010 Vancouver Cultural Olympiad.

"It is very, very exciting," Grand-Maitre said from Vancouver. "I'm working with a fantastic team and a lot of people involved from all over the world. It's just something I never thought I'd be doing, so it's a lot of fun."

He will spend a week a month commuting to Vancouver, and the rest in Calgary, where he will spend the summer creating a new ballet featuring the music of Elton John.

Frankish's work has graced theatre and opera mainstages across the country. Now based in Niagara-on-the-Lake, she specializes in the elaborate, big-cast, large-scale stage repertoire. Her resume includes some of the Shaw Festival's biggest productions. And she's the designer with whom Citadel Theatre artistic director Bob Baker has worked with more than any other, from early days at Edmonton's Phoenix Theatre.

During the decade Baker has been at the helm of Edmonton's largest playhouse, Frankish has spent a great deal of time at the Citadel, making magic happen in the company's biggest, most intricate shows, including A Christmas Carol, Peter Pan and Beauty and the Beast. She is currently designing the season finale, The Wizard of Oz, opening April 23.

Pierce, who composed music for a national tour of the Broadway musical Movin' Out, has been angling for the Olympics ever since he attended them in Calgary.

"I stood on the sidelines of the (19)88 Games, the closing ceremonies," he says. "As I watched there, I made a promise to myself: the next time Canada hosted the Olympics, I wanted to be the guy that was doing the music. Twenty-two years ago I set that dream in motion and the single criteria of every job I've had between then and now has been, does this get me one step closer to being capable of doing the Olympics?"

"The interesting thing is you're creating a show here that has to be as interesting for television audiences around the world as it is for the 55,000 spectators in the stadium," Grand-Maitre says. "It's very complex--much more than what I usually do, because you're working with complex lighting designs, (and) complicated scenery movements. It's going to be very, very sophisticated."

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