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“Illumination”

This was no normal light show.

Located on the grounds of the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois, we took the 20-minute drive out of the city to see an amazing evening light experience.

I say “light experience” because this is not your normal twinkle light display. Don’t get me wrong. I love the twinkle light displays people set up in their yards, businesses put on their roofs and even the Lincoln Park Zoo does each year with more than two million lights. There is a difference here though.

Most of the community lighting displays are images made out of light strings. Animals, Christmas images and the like. This was more like night scaping you might find in a yard, a park or in front of a business; only on steroids. No crafted images of dancing bears or Santa on his sleigh. Nothing like that.

This was a new approach. More like tree and lighting theatre set in an amazing back drop. Morton Arboretum sits on 1,700 acres of mature trees. The land was originally part of the Morton family estate. (The Morton Salt family).

 

The lighting architects took a one mile long path and lit up the surroundings in a myriad of ways. Most of the displays were lighting choreography. The light colors would change. Or they’d vary what trees were lit and when. The colors were all modern; some colors projected on trees that I had never seen before.

They use all LED theatre lights that use 50 percent of the energy of the traditional lights. That said, I could hear a massive generator humming in the distant dark to power the whole operation.

There were plenty of interactive displays. They had trees that you could hug and the tree would go from dark to glowing. It responded to your touch.

They had trees you could sing to and the trees would respond by keeping the beat of your song. Lights pulsing as you sang.

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