Sydney Festival kicks off

The 35th annual Sydney Festival will kick off this Saturday at Festival First Night, which will see the city streets transformed into an array of free stages and precincts.

Over 300,000 people are expected to attend the opening event, where Martin Place, The Domain, Hyde Park and Chifley Square will showcase an array of free music, dance and art events.

The three-week festival from January 8 – 30 attracts over one million people to Sydney each year and is regarded as one of Australia’s largest cultural celebrations.

The festival is supported by the City of Sydney who has contributed $2 million to help secure Sydney as a vibrant global city.

Lord Mayor Clover Moore MP and Chair of Sydney Festival said: “The festival is an innovative showcase of the best performing, visual and experimental acts that Australia and the world have to offer, and the City is proud to support it again in 2011.”

The festival will feature over 100 events with almost 500 artists from Australia and abroad utilising spaces around the city including CarriageWorks, the Opera House and Sydney Theatre.

Festival Director Lindy Hume ,described the 2011 Festival as: “contemporary, bold, global, diverse and ambitious, but also (just like Sydney) welcoming, whimsical and slightly eccentric, with big colourful bursts of existential angst and crazy abandoned love.”

“We hope that Festival artists and audiences will find some deeper human truths in the many stories told in the 2011 Sydney Festival, whose intertwining narratives are part of a larger, shared story- the story of our city in summer,” she said.

One of the featured artworks by Californian conceptual artist John Balderssari, will display the names of over 100,000 people for 15 seconds on a 30 metre Vegas-style electronic billboard.

The artwork, Your Name in Lights, will be located at the Australian Museum’s William Street façade.

A live webcam will shine the billboard to the world 24 hours a day during the course of the festival so participants can see their name wherever they may be.

The City of Sydney is encouraging visitors and residents to make Festival First Night a green event by leaving the car at home and taking advantage of free bike valet parking in Hyde Park North.

“I encourage all Sydneysiders to make the most of summer in our City and cycle, walk or take public transport to Festival First Night and the variety of other exciting cultural experiences,” Ms Moore said.

The line-up for opening night includes country singer Emmylou Harris, US hip-hop masters Arrested Development and New Zealander Michel Tuffery’s projections accompanied with South Pacific music and dance at Chifley Square.

By Sophie Cousins