Concise.pdf - Brugge Plus

Events
We never denied it: BRUGGE 2002 also gladly embraced “events” in its programme from the
word go. The cultural year was to be peppered with festive classics and examples of show and
spectacle that were the reason for a great many people (some 750,000, by our estimates)
gathering in the city.
Nonetheless, popular festivals and events were not to be the reason or excuse for the
programme losing anything in terms of quality or innovation. For every event included
in the BRUGGE 2002 calendar, the criterion was the question as to how this could
create a surplus value for the total project.
Established values
First and foremost there was a series of traditional events and happenings in which
the organisers, in consultation with BRUGGE 2002, sought an updating or a festive
extra in order to strengthen the annual programme. We are thinking here of the
Procession of the Holy Blood, the Pageant of the Golden Tree, the Grand Finale of the
Flanders Day Commemoration, Sail 2002 and the Green Weekend. The organisers of the
Procession of the Holy Blood and the Pageant of the Golden Tree undertook to give
the concept of the cortège a major brush-up in terms of content and/or scenography.
In practice, however, this was limited to an endeavour to carry out a more far-reaching
or fundamental modernisation. For large-scale public events such as Sail and the
Green Weekend, the traditional programme was supplemented in 2002 with less obvious
contemporary ingredients. For example, Peter Vermeersch’s Flat Earth Society
graced the Sail 2002 event with its music, and the Green Weekend, BRUGGE 2002,
a riot of colour, made room for contemporary green creations and installations.
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CONCISE
New for Bruges
Then there were single initiatives that came into being to mark the Cultural Capital
Year or were brought to Bruges as a one-off. The summer festival Klinkers presented
Freaks, an unusual – to say the least – multimedia “circus-cum-theatre performance”
by Theater Froe Froe, and organised an exuberant closing party with Benenwerk
© TOYO ITO
Toyo Ito’s pavilion – preliminary sketch