The Sydney Festival, a celebration of arts and culture, is held in Sydney each January.
The 2005 Sydney Festival ran for three weeks from January 8 to 30, and featured local and international theatre, music, dance, opera, multi-disciplinary and visual arts.
Highlights of this year's Sydney Festival included:
- The opening night Transe Express production of The Lazy Kings held in the open at Olympic Park, Homebush Bay, January 8-10 at 8.30pm.
- Avant garde theatre director/auteur Robert Wilson's comic musical The Black Rider[/link] at the Sydney Theatre, Walsh Bay, January 8-22.
- The New York-based Shen Wei Dance Arts productions of Folding and Rite of Spring at the Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House, January 13-17.
- A remix of The Birth of a Nation by New York turntabilist D J Spooky in his Rebirth of a Nation[/link] at the State Theatre in Sydney January 28 and the Roxy Theatre in Parramatta January 29.
- An evening of Leonard Cohen songs in Came so Far for Beauty with 13 balladeers and 31 songs at the Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House, January 28-30.
- Jazz diva Dianne Reeves in concert at the State Theatre, January 13, 14.
- The first major survey of the work of photographer Bill Henson from the last 30 years comprising some 360 works. At the Art Gallery of New South Wales, January 8-April 3.
- An Eye 4 Photography, the State Library’s biggest and most ambitious photographic exhibition to date with over 125 images following photography's 160-year journey to the digital era in Australia. At the State Library of New South Wales, January 8-May 29.
- Memory of Colour, a contemporary classical music response to Teruyoshi Yoshida’s textile installation, Surface of the Lake, of 25 square metres of shimmering gold. At The Studio, Sydney Opera House, January 14-16.
- The Centre Stage Series, a program of events for Greater Sydney at Riverside Theatres, The Roxy, St Johns Cathedral, Parramatta Park, and Olympic Park.
