Vivid Sydney 2019 will descend on Sydney from 24 May to 15 June for a festival where art, technology and commerce intersect in three weeks of ideas and seminars, amazing music and light sculptures that transform the city.
This year’s installation at Barangaroo sees the return of one of the largest puppets in Australia, the glowing six-meter tall Marri Dyin, (“great woman” in local Sydney language), who will walk from her winter camp to the Barangaroo waterfront to teach audiences about the winter season migration of First Nations peoples to the coast. This year, she will be joined by a school of 30 illuminated fish puppets operated by local Sydney school children, her food source at the water front.
Torres strait Islander dancer and choreographer Albert David will lead school workshops across a range of schools. The students will learn her story and how to use the puppets in their performances at Vivid. This year there is also a focus on First Nations women, both in Marri Dyin’s story of the role of women as providers, and the puppeteering crew, as they will all be female and many First Nations women. They have a vested interest in her story and can speak on what it means to them to be representing this as part of the iconic Sydney experience of Vivid Sydney.
