Just when you thought Adelaide’s festival season shenanigans were over, Illuminate Adelaide has swooped in with the drop of their 2023 program – and it’s one to be marveled.
Since the festival’s inception in 2021, Illuminate Adelaide has been wowing audiences with stunning light installations in spectacular collisions of technology, music and art, and this year a range of new experiences are set to dazzle gazers.
The innovative 2023 program boasts immersive affairs, world premieres, and shows exclusive to Adelaide in a variety of ticketed and free events across the city.
And in a major announcement, the team behind crowd favourite Light Cycles, Moment Factory are brining two new experiences; Resonate in the Adelaide Botanic Garden and Mirror Mirror in the Illuminate Pavilion which will be located at Victoria Square/Tarntanyangga this year.
Resonate, by the Montreal-based multimedia pioneers will feature six new installations spanning a brand new 1.7-kilometre nighttime trail, revealing the Adelaide Botanic Garden’s scape which is said to be brighter, bolder and more immersive than the sell-out Light Cycles of previous years.
While Mirror Mirror aims to take you on a journey through the possibilities of your own imagination via a series of vivid interactive installations, using cutting edge technology. Each installation alters with each interaction, meaning that each person who enters its dreamlike surrounds will witness a unique experience.
A mega roster of music also takes centre-stage for Illuminate Adelaide 2023 which includes genre-defying visual series KLASSIK underground, the 10th anniversary of Unsound Adelaide with their electronic music, as well as dedicated concerts at Hindley Street Music Hall by ARIA Hall of Fame inductees Yothu Yindi, and the experimental sounds of genre prodigy Oneohtrix Point Never, as well as the dreamy electronica of UK’s Tourist.
Australia’s renowned Yothu Yondi will be taking to the stage in a special NAIDOC Week performance at Hindley Street Music Hall which will double as their 30th anniversary celebration for one night only. While rapped DOBBY will bounce around the Nexus Arts stage between piano, drums, and drum pads to showcase his signature ‘drapping’, that’s drumming and rapping combined.
Unsound Adelaide’s 10th anniversary will highlight a line-up of national and international artists, highlighting: the stripped-down dub-techno beats of Space Afrika (UK), lush ambient creations by Sofie Birch matched with Antonina Nowacka’s indelible vocal melodies (DNK/POL), rapper bby mutha (USA) and a whole lot more at the Dom Polski Centre.
Adelaide’s super cool space at Light Square, The Lab will this year present Live at the Lab; a distinctive music program featuring each weekend across the four weeks of Illuminate Adelaide. The co-curated program with Illuminate will see light and sound converge to present some of the most avant-garde new music locally and from around the globe. But you’ll have to wait a until June for the full program announcement which means it’ll be nothing short of spectacular.
In an Australia exclusive, the creative geniuses Architects of Air will introduce Arborialis and the return of the free city-wide centrepiece, City Lights with 40 new installations and projections that will turn Adelaide’s most iconic streets into a whimsical adventure of colour and sound. Boundary-pushing local and international artists will reimagine laneways, street-fronts, and open spaces in three precincts to the North, East and West of Adelaide.
Highlights include flower-power flourishing in the North precinct with Electric Dandelions, by LA’s Liquid PXL, a towering, sculptural floral field that transforms into an inspiring fireworks display. While Trumpet Flowers from Sydney-based Amigo & Amigo invites you to create your own floral symphony or simply enjoy the score as you explore a super-sized musical jungle of light, colour, and sound.
Government House will also open its gates for the duration of City Lights for a premiere work titled Into The Light, projected onto the building’s intricate façade and highlighting a selection of South Australia’s most innovative women. While New Light, a collaboration between Australian Network for Art and Technology and Adelaide Festival Centre’s Moving Image Program returns to King William Road with original works from rising First Nations creatives Chantel Bates, Elizabeth Close, and Jonathon Saunders.
And tot the East End of Adelaide you’ll fine adorned various facades in a precinct-wide exhibition of exquisite original artworks by Adelaide local and celebrity chef, Poh Ling Yeow. Each stunning piece by the multi-talented powerhouse is a mesmerising portrait of Poh’s signature subject, The Girl.
Illuminate Adelaide co-founders and Creative Directors, Lee Cumberlidge and Rachael Azzopardi share, “We look forward to welcoming hundreds of thousands of South Australians and visitors to our state into the city and we are excited by the prospect of people gathering to connect with one another to celebrate art, light, music and technology.”
We’ll be dropping more program specifics over the coming weeks in the lead up to the festival which runs between Wednesday 28 June and Sunday 30 July, but more information on the 2023 Illuminate Adelaide program can be found here.
All images supplied