During my time in Mauritius, I had the chance to attend Port Louis’ 2nd annual Porlwi by Light festival which brings together diverse talents with the purpose of fostering a dialogue between artists, cultural actors and the public.
Porlwi by Light is a festival of contemporary culture that gathers approximately one-third of the entire population which is approximately four hundred thousand people.
The first thing we did once we entered the event grounds was by far the most important in my book, we ate. As we were walking through the streets we found a large number of tents selling all kinds of delicious foods from Dholl Puri to Roti, but after making sure we had scouted every possibility we decided to settle for one of our favourite local delicacies, Biryani.
As we walked deeper into the event we noticed a countdown that was projected onto a building with only thirty seconds left on the clock. When the timer hit zero, the show began.
Projections on the building showing people coming out of a door on the second floor and moving in ways to match what was happening in an animation nearby. They danced and ran in place as the animation scrolled to the side to make it look as though they were truly going somewhere. It was quite interesting to see the mix of projections and human interaction working together to create a beautiful show.
Up next was the water show where there were 6 water jets that sprayed water to different heights. It wasn’t anything impressive at first as the jets were just pushing the water up.However once the music and colourful lights began, things got much more interesting. The jets started pushing the water to the beat of the music while spinning, flipping, raising and lowering. It was actually quite impressive to see.
To close out the night, we found a nearby restaurant where we ordered a few drinks and enjoyed some delicious samosas while continuing to watch the water show. Overall, it was a really unique way to experience Mauritius and to take in the local culture. I would highly recommend attending this unique festival of contemporary culture if ever you are in Mauritius early December.
