Though it now appears Jersey City will only get an obscured glimpse - at best - of the fireworks on display for the Independence Day celebration, a different sort of light show may make people forget about the pyrotechnics. From July 3 through 9, Jersey City residents and other neighboring towns across the Hudson will be able to witness a creative light show projected on the Jersey City waterfront. The Operation Sail 2000 celebration will be opened with Rudi Stern's exhibit "Theater of Light: Jersey City." The 8.5-minute show at 90 Hudson St. will include hundreds of original hand-painted kinetic slides to be projected with three 6,000-watt projectors. The light show will be performed four times per hour from sundown on July 3 at 1 a.m. through Sunday, July 9. Rudi Stern, known for his "Theater of Light" show, specializes in light show projection work through theater, dance and opera. He has devised light shows for the Doors, designed projection of Stravinsky's opera The Rake's Progress, and put together a program called "Psychedelic Celebrations" for noted '60s radical Timothy Leary. Stern has taken an idea he first performed earlier this year in Tribeca. That show included four rotating, circular screens. Stern would throw his visions onto those screens and use more than 5,000 hand-painted slides to refract the images. According to Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler, the "Theater of Light" art show will represent the city's active cultural center and economic growth. "All aspects of Jersey City's expansive rebirth will be on display," Schundler said. "New Jersey residents and our Manhattan neighbors will have the opportunity to glimpse all that Jersey City has to offer."