Meanwhile, Restless Dance Theatre’s Shifting Perspectives in Walsh Bay is both an installation and a performance guaranteed to bring up questions of how we watch and participate. This Adelaide company is renowned for its site-specific productions using dancers of all abilities. Here, working with artist-designer Matthew Adey, they present an event where visitors will find their actions mirrored — and not just by the reflective glass plinths they will have to navigate.

When it comes to watching, there is one enticing piece that taps into the voyeur that lurks within us all. Making excellent use of Sydney’s prized Frank Gehry structure, the Chau Chak Wing Building, Window Dressing is a free event in which a series of scenes will be acted out in eight of the building’s windows, actively inviting us all to peer inside and interpret what we’re seeing, accompanied by a soundtrack you can access via your mobile phone. (Vivid Sydney hack: Pick up some warming, barbecued fare at the nearby Vivid Fire Kitchen on the Goods Line to graze on while you gaze.)

Looking for something a little more challenging? Dare yourself to take part in A THOUSAND WAYS: An Encounter, which pairs participants with a complete stranger, divides them by a sheet of perspex and gives them a deck of cards with instructions to follow, spotlighting the human capacity for connection between strangers. It won over critics in New York (Darryn King in Forbes noted it conveys “a genuine awe at the way two people in this senseless universe might chance to meet and, if only briefly, mingle souls”) and is a tantalising proposition.

However, if you’d prefer to just sit back and take in a film, a series at Sydney’s gem of a cinema, Golden Age, will explore the nuances of the human condition captured on celluloid, each one chosen and introduced by a famous Aussie at the Golden Age of Humanity.

The features on offer include Kylie Kwong’s pick The Quiet Girl, the excellent Irish film about a young child sent to live with relatives one summer, while Craig Foster programs the Oscar-nominated animated documentary Flee about an Afghan refugee who must reveal his past to his soon-to-be husband. Activist Carly Findlay has selected the crowd-pleaser Clueless, the ultimate ’90s high-school comedy that spurned a thousand quotes (As IF!).

Also, for something more intimate amid all the lights and music, seek out an illuminated Poem Booth at Darling Harbour, a gadget which finds the elegance in humanity by using AI to turn whoever it senses standing before it into a piece of poetry. Can we get an “aww” in here?

Vivid Sydney 2024 is on from May 24-June 15. For the full program, click here.