Under the Sails

Sydney Vivid Festival

This week kicks off the Vivid Festival, a festival that celebrates light, music and ideas, and one of the best winter festival in the southern hemisphere. The whole city is aglow with light installations, projections, like little dancing fairies across the city skyline. One of the main attractions of course is the "Lighting of the Sails" on the Sydney Opera House. A chosen artist every year is given the task of projecting different images and illusions on the sails of the Opera House.

Lighting the Sails of the Opera House

Vivid Live celebrates music and invites some big-name artists such as Florence + the Machine and Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs to perform at the Opera House in time for the festival. Drew organized for a few of us from BU to go and see Sufjan Stevens perform at the Opera House- my first time seeing a show there. It was a phenomenal show, and fit in perfectly with the festival's theme. It focused on the solar system, which each song dedicated to a particular planet. Sufjan was adorable and gave us a little 3rd grade astronomy lesson for each planet. I actually learned some cool facts, such as the largest mountain in our solar system in on Mars, and is three times the size of Everest! Crazy!

Sufjan Stevens live at the Sydney Opera House

In the center of the stage was a giant orb, which they illuminated and illustrated with light. It was very trippy--we agreed that we felt like we were all on drugs. The music they produced was highly experimental and overall an awesome show. I've finally seen a show at the Opera House! Although I would recommend seeing a show rather than a concert...