Michael McCreary, a stand-up comedian got the show rolling, with Chris Hadfield following right behind. Chris spoke about his recent trip to the Arctic with numerous creatives, a part of the Generator program, and showed some amazing footage from their travels. It looked, and sounded, like an amazing opportunity to explore a part of the world that is visited by few people, but is part of the country we currently live in.
We were even treated to a unique musical performance of the sound of colour images live-streamed from the International Space Station, and Moon recreated the vibrations in her arm by playing a drum to the beat of earthquakes in real-time. It didn't always sound pretty when the two were combined, but it was an interesting concept.
The Ocean Cleanup is a company focused on developing technologies for cleaning up the plastic in our oceans. The founder is only 22 years old, having started the project when he was 16, and the company has done quite a bit of work in determining how much plastic is in our oceans (sadly, much more than we thought) and coming up with big solutions.
Lucky Iron Fish tackles a completely different problem which is that of iron-deficiency in much of the world. They have developed an iron fish which can be cooked with food in water and adds iron to that food, AND it is good for 5 years. Such a creative solution to a worldwide problem.
Then we were treated to a musical performance by Amanda Palmer. So good, and so funny.
Overall, the evening was entertaining, thought-provoking, and fun. It went on a bit longer than expected so when we left the theatre at 11:30 pm, we headed straight to Fran's Diner for our evening meal. No complaints.
Here are some more photos from the event: