Saturday afternoon, approaching three pm…“Close the gates – we're absolutely full”. It's one of London's premier venues so perhaps no surprise that there's still a huge crowd outside trying to get in.
Think again. This is the British Museum. Its towering old iron gates in front of the elegant forecourt aren’t often pressed into action as crowd barriers. It's the eve of Chinese New Year (we're welcoming the Year of the Rat) and the museum has programmed a mini Chinese Festival from morning until midnight. The centre piece continues to be its 'First Emperor' exhibition with unique access to The Terracotta Warriors. This alone has broken attendance records over recent months. But add to this Chinese crafts and food, mandarin story tellers, and the climax (for me at least), a concert performance of Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewletts 'Monkey: Journey to the West'.
Premiering at last year's Manchester International Festival, 'Monkey' is a fantastical retelling of the Chinese monkey myth. Building on Albarn and Hewlett's famous collaboration on 'Gorillaz', it combines Albarn's music and Hewlett’s vivid animations. The museum's Great Court offered a dramatic arena for the performance and surely this most majestic of spaces can hardly have been more densely populated. And if you still thought London's museums are only populated with the white, middle classes from the Home Counties, you'd have been in for a shock.
Neil McGregor and his team at the British Museum have created a potent combination of world leading interpretative exhibitions and outreach projects that open the museum to new audiences and different community perspectives. In 2005 I worked on the Africa '05 season and once again McGregor melded thought-provoking exhibits with days when the galleries and forecourts alive with African music, food, fashion and crafts.
The huge success of the Museum’s Chinese New Year inevitably takes my mind forward. I'm sure the imminence of the Beijing Olympic Games and Paralympic Games is one reason for the extra interest in all things Chinese, and it's no different in our office. The Ceremonies team are deep into production of our eight minute handover segments for the Beijing Closing Ceremonies – the very moments when the Olympic and Paralympic movements had over from one city to the next hosts.
Soon afterwards we'll be launching the 2012 Culture Programme, which brings us neatly back to Neil McGregor and the British Museum. Neil is one of the leading figures behind a major project in the Culture Programme. 'Stories of the World' will take the world class collections housed in UK Museums and Galleries and look at them from different global perspectives.
I was lucky enough to attend another sell-out this week – very different in most ways from Chinese New Year – but just as important. It was at the Hackney Empire where the 'Discover Young Hackney' festival launched to a full house. It's the second year and to kick of the 2008 event, we heard from talented young rappers, film-makers, actors and musicians – all of whom featured in last year's festival and seem to have gone from strength to strength. Different it may be, but 'Discover Young Hackney' has one thing in common with Neil McGregor's British Museum projects. It too is a possible candidate, next year, to feature in the 2012 culture programme. We'll be telling you more about how to access the programme next month.
For now, do Discover Young Hackney if you can, and wherever you are celebrate Year of the Rat!
