Thousands of cultural events taking place across Britain to celebrate Olympic Games

A set of Olympic rings are seen standing in front of apartments for athletes during a media opportunity at the Olympic and Paralympic athlete's village in London, Thursday, July 12, 2012. The London Olympics begin on July 27. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

LONDON - Every street, alley and grassy knoll here will be alive with a cacophony of ringing bells - church bells, bike bells, doorbells and a ringing-bell app downloaded to smartphones. Or at least that's the plan behind "All the Bells: Work No. 1197," a massive interactive performance art project created by artist Martin Creed to mark the start of the London Olympic Games on July 27.

"All the Bells" is one of 12,000 cultural events unfurled across Britain to celebrate the Games. The Cultural Olympiad officially launched in 2008, but activity has reached a frenzy as towns across the land mount performances and artistic spectacles. The events include a life-sized inflatable moon-bounce version of Stonehenge created by artist Jeremy Deller that is popping up all around the country and Peace Camp, an exploration of love poetry by theater director Deborah Warner and actress Fiona Shaw designed to be experienced at remote beach locations.

The bulk of performances and exhibitions have landed in London, including a Pina Bausch retrospective, the World Shakespeare Festival, the premiere of ex-Blur singer Damon Albarn's folk opera "Dr Dee" and major exhibitions of Damien Hirst, Yoko Ono, David Hockney and Lucian Freud. Always one of the great cultural cities of the world, London is like an overstuffed cabinet of wonders this summer, with more attractions than any one person could possibly attend - even the director of the Cultural Olympiad, Ruth Mackenzie.

Described by the Guardian as "the cavalry," Mackenzie was drafted into the job in 2010 with a mission of bringing focus to an unruly mass of events. "The good thing about coming in with two years to go is that expectations are quite low about what you can achieve," Mackenzie said last month, drinking tea in a museum cafe high above Trafalgar Square. A former head of the Scottish Opera and the Manchester International Festival, she has cropped silvery hair and a surprisingly mischievous air for someone controlling a huge arts festival.

Mackenzie saw the Olympiad as a chance to stage some extraordinary performances in a moment of global belt-tightening. (She estimates the spending for the Cultural Olympiad and the London 2012 Festival at around 100 million pounds, or $136 million.)

"What can you do creatively that is once in a lifetime? I think Gustavo Dudamel and Simon Bolivar turning up in Raploch is once in a lifetime," she says, referring to a June concert in a small Scottish town in which Dudamel conducted a symphony made up of local children and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela. Another favorite example is "One Extraordinary Day," featuring Elizabeth Streb and her daredevil Brooklyn dance troupe scaling an undisclosed London landmark.

Arts festivals have been a component of the Olympics since the ancient Greeks, but there are surprisingly divergent views about how to stage these events and how integral they are to the experience. The Los Angeles Olympics Arts Festival in 1984, for example, had a catalyzing effect on the city, according to theater director Peter Sellars.

Beatriz Garcia, head of research at Liverpool's Institute of Cultural Capital and author of "The Olympic Games and Cultural Policy," said Olympics arts festivals "are the one aspect of the Games that offers greatest flexibility to include and represent diverse communities and their voices, as well as highlight the best art and cultural offerings available, which in turn may lead to long-term economic returns such as increased tourism."

In fact, Mackenzie said she's been asked to hit a target: "This is the sixth most-visited country in the world, and Jeremy Hunt (secretary of state for culture, Olympics, media and sport) wants us to be the fifth most-visited country in the next 10 years" and surpass Italy. She added with a chuckle, "I won't be in the job in 10 years, so I'm not sure how he'll hold me to account."

Balancing the needs of ministers and the interests of residents is tricky, particularly for a nation in economic distress, and there's been grumbling among the British about the cost of these arts events.

"The contrast between money being spent on all the Olympics' pageantry and the significant cuts in benefits casts the Olympics in a different light than when the Games were confirmed in 2005, which was a time of relative prosperity," said British journalist Dorian Lynskey, author of "33 Revolutions Per Minute: A History of Protest Songs."

Lynskey doesn't see a coherent sense of contemporary British culture in the arts festivities - and little trace of Tony Blair's triumphal "Cool Britannia" of the '90s, when Britpop bands Blur and Oasis spearheaded a mini-British invasion of the U.S. and cheeky artists like Hirst and Tracey Emin were proudly dubbed YBAs (Young British Artists). "In the mid-'90s, it was easy to present an upbeat narrative," he said. "Against the current backdrop of ongoing political and economic crisis across Europe, there's not the feeling this is a golden era."

He points out that the decision to have 1980s and '90s bands like Blur, New Order and the Specials perform at the Olympics' closing concert rather than a contemporary black British rap star like Dizzee Rascal suggests a need to stoke nostalgia rather than celebrate 2012 urban diversity. "Are we celebrating Britain now or 15 years ago?"

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