Olympic committee unveils its entertainment team

Vancouver's Olympic Organizing Committee has recruited music director Dave Pierce and choreographer Jean Grand-Matre to help stage the opening and closing ceremonies at the 2010 Winter Games.

They are part of a team of Canadian and international talent announced Tuesday in Vancouver.

Montreal-born Grand-Matre, artistic director of the Alberta Ballet, is one of Canada's most innovative choreographers, and created the international hit The Fiddle and the Drum, to the music of Joni Mitchell.

He'll be working closely with Pierce, also a Calgary resident, who has experience in musical theatre and classical composition, as well as working with artists such as Carrie Underwood and Jann Arden.

Pierce has produced Grey Cup half-time shows for the CFL and Radio City Music Hall's Christmas Spectacular with the Rockettes as well as writing for Broadway shows such as Nerds and Red Rock Diner.

The Olympic committee has also recruited some of Canada's top talent agents to jointhe creative team led by Australian executive producer David Atkins.

The headline talent producers, who will recruit talent for the games, include Samuel Leon Feldman, who represents artist such as Nelly Furtado and Rush, Dan Fraser, who manages Sarah McLachlan and the Barenaked Ladies and Bruce Allen, who works with Bryan Adams and Michael Bubl.

Feldman says there's one key challenge for the talent agents trying to shape a show of this magnitude

"The challenge is to reflect the diversity of Canada and put on the stage artists who will keep viewers connected to their screen," he told CBC News.

"It's one thing for three billion people to turn their sets on it's another to for them to stay glued and tuned, and I think we're going to do just fine."

Feldman says negotiations are now underway with some of Canada's biggest international music stars to perform at the ceremonies.

Organizers say there will be no lip-synching or dubbing used during the 2010 show, as was the case during the Summer Games in Beijing last year.

The talent announced Tuesday also includes Toronto-born twins Dean and Dan Caten, who've designed costumes for Madonna and Britney Spears.

The brothers, who own Dsquared2 Fashion, are known for their theatrical designs.

Also joining the creative team:

• Design director Douglas Paraschuk of Stratford, Ontario, who has spent 21 seasons with the Stratford Shakespeare Festival and helped design the 15th Asian Games in Doha, Qatar.
• Designer Leslie Frankish of Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, who has designed for the Shaw Festival, Canadian Stage Company and Citadel Theatre.
• Designer Anne-Sguin Poirier, a set and costume designer based in Saint-Lambert, Quebec, who is currently working on a new Cirque du Soleil production.
• Designer Connie Watts of West Vancouver, an artist who is project manager of the Vancouver 2010 Venues' Aboriginal Art Program for the 2010 Winter Games.
• Design coordinator John Powell, who works in fashion, costume, and interior and graphic design and recently worked onthe Chinese/Aboriginal drum video for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.
• Designer Kevin McAllister who designs scenery, lighting and costumes for theatre and opera.
• Choreography associate director Marlise McCormick who worked with Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal and has choreographed events such as 1994 Commonwealth Games.
• Head of audiovisual Cyril Meusy of Burnaby, B.C. who worked on the media show for the British Columbia Canada Pavilion at the Torino 2006 Olympic Winter Games.
• Lighting director Bob Dickinson who has won 16 Emmy Awards in his three-decade career in lighting design and whose credits include three Olympic broadcasts.
• Audio director Bruce Jackson a California-based sound designer and house sound engineer for Elvis Presley, Bruce Springsteen and Barbara Streisand and vice-president of Dolby Laboratories.