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23/9/2001

Festival of Creative Genius

Harbourfront centre, Toronto

Harbourfront Centre, in consultation with more than 150 cultural advisors from around the world, has selected 14 men and women whose extraordinary accomplishments have transformed their particular fields of creativity as well as the world around them. In individual evenings of celebration Harbourfront Centre will pay homage to these creative giants, exploring the many dimensions of their unique contributions. Surrounding these once-in-a-lifetime evenings - to be held at Toronto's newest and most glamorous entertainment complex, the impressive Liberty Grand - will be a series of city-wide celebratory programmes...films, performances, discussions, exhibitions and lectures. These special events will further celebrate the extent to which these creative artists have transformed our culture world-wide and explore the very nature of creative risk and innovation. With its dual stream of special celebratory evenings and city-wide special events, World Leaders: a Festival of Creative Ge! nius is the largest international programme ever presented in the 27 year history of Harbourfront Centre.

"We conceived World Leaders as a way to mark Harbourfront Centre's first quarter century and the beginning of a new millennium,'' said William J.S. Boyle, Chief Executive Officer of Harbourfront Centre. ''This seems the perfect time to pay tribute to some of the greatest creative innovators of our time and to emphasise the seminal role that individual artists play in shaping the world around us."

The world leaders

Leading off the list of 14 leaders who will be in Toronto is fashion giant Issey Miyake from Tokyo. His immense range of talents, which have transformed style and fashion around the globe, will be explored in a tribute evening on Monday, September 24. He is followed on Monday, October 1, by Guy Laliberte', the Quebec innovator whose genius is behind the world-wide phenomenon known as Cirque du Soleil. The transformational French designer Philippe Starck, whose legacy includes everything from furniture and household accessories to hotels and books, joins us for his fe'te on Wednesday, October 3. The Toronto-born architectural powerhouse, Frank Gehry, whose genius stands behind the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum and the Seattle Experience Music Project, will be honoured on Friday, October 5. She gave the world Edith-Ann and Ernestine, has been nominated for an Academy Award, and has won almost every imaginable award for her unparalleled one-woman show, The Search for Signs of Intellig! ent Life in the Universe; the genius of Lily Tomlin will be celebrated on Saturday, October 6. The man who transformed American musical theatre through works like West Side Story, Gypsy, Sweeney Todd and Follies, Broadway composer extraordinaire Stephen Sondheim will be fe'ted in style on Thursday, October 11. Italy's unparalleled contribution to the world of film, director of The Last Emperor, Besieged and Last Tango in Paris, the creative dynamo Bernardo Bertolucci will be present for an hommage on Saturday, October 13.

The unconstrained energy of American visual artist Robert Rauschenberg, a man who has profoundly influenced the shape of 20th century art, will be explored on Monday, October 15. On Wednesday, October 17, the first day of Harbourfront's International Festival of Authors, it is only fitting to fe'te British playwright, screenwriter and actor Harold Pinter, whose distinctive style in works like The Birthday Party, Betrayal, The Homecoming and The French Lieutenant's Woman (screenplay), has given birth to ''Pinter pause'' and ''Pinteresque'' in daily theatre vocabulary. Canada's Joni Mitchell, who gave the world an unending musical legacy, including Big Yellow Taxi, Blue and Both Sides Now, and whose seminal influence has inspired a whole new generation of singer/songwriters, will be heralded on Friday, October 19. Then it's the turn of the Quebec creative genius and Renaissance man who has stretched the theatre world with works like Tectonic Plates, Seven Streams of the River Ot! a and Needles and Opium, Robert Lepage, on Monday, October 22. Wednesday, October 24, the founder/leader of the band Genesis and creator of WOMAD (World of Music, Arts & Dance), the British musical legend that is Peter Gabriel will be explored. Musical talent doesn't get much bigger than that of Quincy Jones of Motown and We Are the World fame, and that's only a portion of the work of this phenomenal legend. He joins us for a celebration on Friday, October 26. The final homage of the series belongs to Germany's Pina Bausch, the unparalleled innovator who has transformed the contemporary dance world; her tribute will be held on Tuesday, October 30.

The Canadian artistic team

A team of renowned Canadian artists is now hard at work planning these extraordinary evenings and the vast series of special events which will take place throughout the Festival period. Film and theatre Directors, including Duncan McIntosh, Dennis Garnhum, Jeannette Lambermont, Larry Weinstein and Niv Fichman, will work with Designers Ken MacDonald and Paul Mathieson and some of Toronto's best creative writers - David Macfarlane, D'Janet Sears and Richard Nielsen, among others - to put together the once-in-a-lifetime evenings. A roster of Toronto's greatest Chefs will create special culinary experiences for the sumptuous dinners which precede each tribute.

Special events

Complementing the tribute evenings are an array of special events which further explore the lasting legacies of our world leaders and explore the very nature of creativity. Still in the planning stage are a series of free films, Reel Leaders, which will investigate the creative process and pay tribute to the honourees; an extensive menu of panel discussions, dialogues and lectures; theatrical and musical events featuring Canadian performers paying tribute in their own inimitable way; and exhibitions on the legacy of the World Leaders. Cinematheque Ontario, the Goethe Institut, the University of Toronto and the Munk Centre for International Studies are but four organisations who will partner on these special events. More information will be released as it becomes available.

The Harbourfront Centre Prize

Each of the 14 World Leaders will be presented with the $25,000 Harbourfront Centre Prize. Thanks to the unprecedented support of Harbourfront Centre's world leader corporate partners, World Leaders is one of the largest cultural prize programmes in Canada.

Ticket sales

Tickets for each of the 14 once-in-a-lifetime evenings at the Liberty Grand are $175, inclusive of special dinner and tribute. They go on sale Saturday, June 2, to the general public and can be purchased by calling the Harbourfront Centre Box Office at +1 416-973-4000. American Express card holders may take advantage of Front of the Line ticket sales beginning May 22. Watch the Globe and Mail or your newspaper for ads. Further information for World Leaders: a Festival of Creative Genius, presented by American Express, will be announced at a later date.

For further information:
Media Contact: Bruce Hutchinson, Manager, Marketing & Media Relations
+1 (416) 973-4677, bruceh@harbourfront.on.ca

Harbourfront centre
235 Queens Quay West
Toronto, Ontario, CANADA M5J 2G8

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