The Ten Best Things to See at the Sydney Festival 2014

It may be hot outside, but it's not quite 'our city in summer' until the Sydney Festival starts up on January 9, bringing with it a tidal wave of performance, music, art and other festivities. Its 2014 program is a massive conglomeration of 104 events, featuring 722 artists from 80 companies across 17 countries. Look out for a much bigger festival garden (so big, in fact, it's now the Festival Village) in Hyde Park, the return of music venue Paradiso at Town Hall and everyone's favourite duck, and a version of Stonehenge that you can bounce on. Yes, bounce on.

Hive + 100 Million Nights

Nothing screams 'arts festival' like a work that ticks all the mediums at once. Electronic super duo Canyons are collaborating with celebrated visual artist Daniel Boyd to present 100 Million Nights, a multisensory performance making its way around the country. Boyd's digital artwork is presented as a three-panel video installation, in front of which Canyons perform live as a four-piece band. Also included is another sight and sound work by former Battles frontman Tyondai Braxton. Hive will blend modular synthesisers, sound design and percussion with custom built "architecturally designed" illuminated platforms.

January 21 at the Sydney Opera House

Sacrilege

Sacrilege is a life-size inflatable recreation of Stonehenge. That’s right. The enigmatic monument that’s perplexed historians for years has been "reimagined" as a bouncy castle that all and sundry can hop around on. Take that, reverence. After premiering at the London Cultural Olympiad, Sacrilege is now taking over a big whack of Hyde Park. It's 34m long, so there should actually be room for the jumping hordes.

January 8-26 at the Festival Village

Festival Village

We all know Hyde Park is much better when conceived as a kind of Midsummer Night's Dream: a magical, atmospheric hub bounded by strings of lights. This Sydney Festival promises a Festival Village in Hyde Park is the ultimate garden bar, thrice as sprawling as last year's Festival Garden. It's your one-stop summer destination, with Sacrilege for arty exertion; the Spiegeltent, Village Bandstand and Rekorderlig Gazebo for all your entertainment needs; and Gelato Messina, Food Society, Jafe Jaffles and Woofys hot dogs for sustenance (just behold these custom-made Messina creations). Entry is free and the Village gates are open until 2am.

January 9-26 at Hyde Park North

Dido & Aeneas

In the vein of last year's Semele Walk, Dido & Aeneas combines exquisite dance, costumes, singing, music and stagecraft to tell a passionate love story. By Henry Purcell, the Baroque score was described by festival director Lieven Bertels as having "topped the emo charts for almost 350 years now". Most headline-grabbingly, the show is an 'underwater opera', opening with a dance that takes place inside a 7500L water tank. Be prepared; tickets are expensive, but you can see why.

January 16-21 at the Lyric Theatre

Amadou & Mariam's Eclipse

To be a part of Amadou & Mariam's Eclipse, you have to leave the sense upon which you probably feel most dependent — your sight — at the door of the Town Hall. For the entire show, the room will be immersed in pitch-black darkness. Through the course of the show, performers Amadou and Mariam, who met in the 1970s at the Bamako Institute for the Young Blind, sing, play, tell stories of their home in Mali and spray some scents in your direction.

January 9-11 at the Town Hall

La Voix Humaine

La Voix Humaine is like the opposite of Dido and Aeneas. Instead of 60 performers and a whole bunch of stage magic, you get one woman pleading with her lover down the phone line after a break-up. Adapted from the script by legendary poet and film directer Jean Cocteau by Amsterdam's world-renowned Toeneelgroep, it's a chance to peer in to someone else's world, at perhaps its most tense moment.

January 9-13 at Carriageworks

Hot Dub Time Machine

When it played for free at last year's festival, Hot Dub Time Machine caused a crush at the gates of the Spiegeltent. This year, the festival's wised up and programmed more of it, with a $20 cover charge on most occasions. If you can go, do go. Over the course of one long set, Sydney DJ Tom Loud spins, mixes and mashes his way through the story of dance music — since 1954. The catch is that the entire operation is 'powered' by energy generated by the crowd. Whether you're dancing, singing, talking or yelling, you'll be helping to keep the action rolling.

January 10 at Parramatta Opening Party; January 11 at Summer Sounds in the Domain; and January 11, 18 and 25 at the Spiegeltent.

Andrew Weatherall

According to Resident Advisor, Andrew Weatherall was the world's first "proper punk DJ". It might be the first (and last) time that "proper" and "punk" are used in the same sentence, but there's no arguments that Weatherall has earned such a distinction. He's remixed a list of names as long as the Nile, from Bjork to the Manic Street Preachers to My Bloody Valentine to James. His live shows are famously hypnotic, seductive affairs, combining post-punk, dark electro and house.

January 26 at the Spiegeltent

I, Malvolio

A sometime Royal Shakespeare Company director and an original theatre maker of great repute, Tim Crouch drags the “notoriously wronged” steward from Twelfth Night out into the limelight. By the end of that play, Malvolio has been bullied, tricked into thinking his mistress is in love with him, publicly humiliated and institutionalised) And Crouch thinks all of you out there were part of the problem, complicit in Malvolio's torment. The result is a sort of deranged stand-up routine in which Crouch rants at the audience while wearing dirty long johns. From reviews the world over, we know it's hilarious. To see him go full pelt, come to the adults-only show on January 18 at 10pm.

January 16-19 at Carriageworks

Sun Ra Arkestra

Before David Bowie wrote ‘Life on Mars?’, before Vangelis released Albedo 0.39 and even before the original Star Trek, Sun Ra was preoccupied with outer space. But for someone who believed he didn’t belong here, he contributed more than his fair share. The Solar Arkestra, formed in the 1950s, was the first big band to explore total collective improvisation. Underpinned by Sun Ra’s philosophy, which combined ancient Egyptian spirituality with space age possibilities, the group also became known for its striking theatrical elements — sci-fi headdresses, multicoloured robes, metallic capes and dancers were all part of the show. With Sun Ra having passed away in 1993, the Arkestra now performs under the directorship of legendary saxophonist Marshall Allen.

January 18 at the State Theatre.

And also...

There are 104 events all up at the Sydney Festival — so we couldn't go without mentioning a few more of our favourites. Magic/theatre show Bullet Catch calls for you to pull the trigger; Othello: The Remix is a charming "ad-rap-tation"; Forklift features dancers who also hold heavy machinery licences; Amanda Palmer is playing a mere ten Spiegeltent shows; Big Star’s Third sees the cult album played in all its broken, twisted beauty by an all-star band; Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth) and Mike Patton (Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, etc) unite for a collaborative performance; Christian Boltanski’s mega installation Chance fills the space left by last year's Waste Not; and 13 Rooms hit artist Roman Ondak is back for Kaldor Public Art Project 28.

By the Concrete Playground team.