UK to celebrate Paralympics with disabled festival

LONDON - Opening of the Paralympic Games is to be celebrated in the UK with various performances and artwork.

The Unlimited program, bringing together 200 artists across the UK, encouraged collaborations and partnerships between disability arts organizations, disabled and deaf artists, producers and mainstream organizations to celebrate the inspiration of the Paralympics.

"It is unprecedented," said Ruth Mackenzie, director of the London 2012 Festival and the Cultural Olympiad. "We have commissioned 29 commissions of disabled artists, and we think this is the biggest disabled art festival in the world."

"We offer the artists the same chance as those athletes to show how brilliant they are," she told Xinhua.

A piece of dance theatre by award-winning performer Claire Cunningham is to explore her 20-year-old relationship with her crutches, while comedian Laurence Clark will present his new show to question why ordinary, everyday activities are suddenly considered inspirational when it's a disabled person doing them.

In Belfast, Northern Ireland, an animated film namely Macropolis will tell a story of two misshapen toy figurines who attempted to escape from the factory after they realized that they were destined to be thrown into the waste bin.

There will also be two projects combining disabled artists from Brazil with British artists to do outdoor carnival work.

With these activities, actors tried to change people's perception of disability. Mackenzie hoped that the activities could be inspirational to future hosts of Olympics and Paralympics, including Rio, the next host in 2016.

The London 2012 Festival is a 12-week-long celebration across the UK for the Olympics and Paralympics, running from June 21 to September 9.

According to Mackenzie, it has so far exceeded its audience target, attracting a total of 12 million audiences, with 9.6 million free tickets and opportunities handed out.