Enlighten 2016

The Enlighten festival (held in early March each year) has become a must see experience for us.  We are still taking the cheap option and only going to the free events - but don't feel short-changed at all.  The Parliamentary Triangle explodes with light, with colour, with music and with quirky fun. 

Over the last two Sunday Selections I have shared some of the magic, but there was sooooo much more.

Please come with me - and settle in for a looooong ride with a lot of photos.  As always photos will embiggen when clicked upon.


This year we arrived a bit before dark, and wandered down to see what was happening.  Lots.

At one of our first stops we came across Gastropodia by the Kinetic Theatre.  Described as a giant hairy snail from a realm far away I thought it was a snail crossed with a llama.  Ridden by something not unhobbitlike.

  
Don't ask me how, but they left a snail like trail behind them too.

Walking on.

 The Night Noodle Markets.  Better set up than last year, with more stalls and even some seating but we didn't partake.  Which was perhaps just as well since there have been reports of food poisoning.  Given the viley hot temperatures and limited facilities I am not surprised.

The National Portrail Gallery.  The illuminations to all the buildings changed every minute or so. 
Walking on, the trees were bathed in colour - which also changed..

Which brings us to Unuscornu by Airena.  A scupture and a secret cubby.

    
I am not certain I would like a cubby in a unicorn's skull - but it was very, very popular.  That v-shaped shadow was the door and adults and children alike crowded inside.

And these last two were from the National Art Gallery.

We are now about half way through - with more illuminated buildings and more colourful acts to share.  Even by my standards this looks like being a photo heavy post and I will stop here.  Would you like me to infict share the rest in a later post?   Sunday Selections this week will be devoted to the Balloon Spectacular - and there are lots and lots of photos of it too.

Sunday Selection #267

Sunday Selections was originally brought to us by Kim, of Frogpondsrock, as an ongoing meme where participants could post previously unused photos languishing in their files.
 
The meme is now continued by River at Drifting through life.  The rules are so simple as to be almost non-existent.  Post some photos under the title Sunday Selections and link back to River.  Clicking on any of the photos will make them embiggen.
 
Like River I usually run with a theme.  I am taking you back to Enlighten this week (and there will probably be another post still to come).  We went back to see performances that only took place in the second week.  

I also took the opportunity to talk to people in the information centres about the rabbit sub-theme I had noticed.  The young woman at the first information booth told me that there wasn't a rabbit theme and not every building featured them.  Wrong.
And at the second I was told that yes, there were rabbits on every building, but it was just an amazing co-incidence.  Which I doubt.  So it will remain a mystery.

When we arrived we noticed that Amanda Parer's inflatable rabbits had done what rabbits do - and bred.  There were three last week, and five this.

I was amazed at how expressive their faces were.

This first one is a very, very sad rabbit.

 And then we kept wandering, to track down Meduses from the Black Hole Theatre, which was described as:
'Giant illuminated jellyfish to transport us to the deep blue and the life aquatic'. 

 Do you wonder that Enlighten has become an annual treat and that we try and get there at least twice?
Next week.  BALLOONS!!!!