An arts funding group created to build the cultural Olympiad in Vancouver announced $1.7 million in funding on Thursday for 24 British Columbia arts organizations.

Among the projects getting the nod are a new jazz work celebrating the hockey rivalry between Canada and Sweden, a sculpture about the pine beetle destined for Prince George, B.C., and dance for Vancouver's downtown Eastside.

Canadian artist Peter von Tiesenhausen, shown in 2002, has been commissioned to create a new sculpture for Prince George, B.C.
(Paul Allman/Canadian Press)

The successful projects, to be completed by the end of the year, were announced by Arts Partners in Creative Development, a partnership of the provincial government, the City of Vancouver, Canada Council for the Arts, Vancouver Foundation, Vanoc and 2010 Legacies Now.

The group has $6.5 million to invest in arts events over three years, with the idea of creating cultural events that could run at the same time as the Vancouver 2010 Olympics.

The largest grant went to the Prince George Regional Art Gallery Association, which won $201,850 to commission Alberta's Peter von Tiesenhausen to create a 20-foot bronze sculpture called Balance, that will be a meditation on the pine beetle epidemic.

The Vancouver Art Gallery won $75,000 to commission a new work, an installation by local artist Reece Terris that will occupy the main atrium of the gallery.

Called Ought Apartment, the piece will be a tower with six stacked apartments that reflect the styles of the last six decades of housing in Vancouver.

Axis Theatre Society of Vancouver, working with Montreal's Centaur Theatre, were successful in getting $115,000 toward a production of Don Quixote, an adaptation of the classic novel by playwrights Colin Heath and Peter Anderson.

They will perform the work using mask, mime, puppetry, acrobatics and other innovative theatre techniques.

The Coastal Jazz and Blues Society will commission Canadian clarinetist François Houle and Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafsson to collaborate on a work called Ice Hockey: Canada vs Sweden. The society has won $90,000 to create and perform the work.

The two will create music based on the rules, systems and culture of ice hockey, an Olympic sport and an important part of the culture of both countries.

The Dancing on the Edge Festival has been awarded $150,000 to commission 10 new dances for the festival, celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2008.

Dances will be performed in Downtown Eastside

Choreographers such as Serge Bennathan, Joe Laughlin and Tara Cheyenne Friendenberg have been asked to create new works. Three of the dances will be performed in public areas in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside neighbourhood.

Several of the projects have an international element.

The PuSH International Performing Arts Festival has asked Berlin's Rimini Protokoll theatre group to develop a new theatre work for and about Vancouver.

Rimini Protokoll are famous for creating works for specific locations based on exhaustive research of a city and its life. The project has won $160,000.

The Kootenay School of Writing won $50,000 to commission 18 Canadian and American poets to create new works.

The poets, who are also experimenting with theatre and electronic formats, are to present their pieces at an international conference in August 2008 looking at emerging trends in poetry.

Other projects include:

• $130,000 to the Vancouver Chamber Choir for a variety of chorale works by famed composer R. Murray Schafer and Britain's John Taverner, as well as other Canadian and international composers.
• $95,000 to develop Where the Blood Mixes, a play by First Nations artist Kevin Loring backed by Kamloops Western Theatre, Toronto's Luminato Festival and four other theatre groups.
• $100,000 to create an outdoor performance piece with music, aerial acrobats and new media for the town of Whistler, B.C.