The Hidden Costs of Aspiring to Global City Status: Robert Lepage, Vancouver and Twenty-First Century China Collide at the 2010 Cultural Olympiad

Melissa Poll

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle

Abstract

“The Hidden Costs of Aspiring to Global City Status” examines the selection of The Blue Dragon, a sequel to The Dragons’ Trilogy crafted for the international festival circuit by Robert Lepage and Ex Machina, as a top-billed event in Vancouver’s 2010 Cultural Olympiad. Contextualized by the mega-event legacy of development in Vancouver, including the sale of Expo land to the wealthy Hong-Kong businessman Li Ka-shing and the post-Olympics spike in real estate twenty-five years later, this essay interrogates the ways in which The Blue Dragon represents the West’s uneasy relationship with a rapidly globalizing China and highlights the ethos driving contemporary racial tensions in Vancouver.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)78-82
Number of pages5
JournalCanadian Theatre Review
Volume164
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 30 Oct 2015

Keywords

  • Vancouver after 2010
  • Robert Lepage
  • Mega-event impacts
  • performance

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