Kicking off tomorrow, the Greenwich & Docklands International Festival brings nine days of excitement to London.
Founded by its artistic director Bradley Hemmings back in 1996, this year will feature over one hundred and fifty outdoor performances. Taking place on Friday 21 and Saturday 22 June, the outdoor area in front of the National Maritime Museum will be transformed with two nights of As The World Tipped – a ‘disaster movie in the sky’ involving lots of wirework from the Wired Aerial Theatre, followed by Word On The Street which will run from 22 to 29 June across three locations. In Island Gardens and throughout Greenwich town centre and Woolwich town centres keep your eyes open for new theatrical performances from the wild to the wonderful, including Greek tragedies, guided audio walks and more.
Over this coming weekend there will also be two fairs – one in Greenwich and one in Island Gardens. Running from Friday to Sunday, Greenwich will feature three days of performance from across Europe to mark the 40th year of our membership of the European Union, and across the river there will be circus and dance from Tiled Productions, a new piece by the ground-breaking Greae Theatre and an ‘astronomical fantasy’ from the Pif Paf theatre company (remember that Island Gardens is just a short walk through the Greenwich Foot Tunnel or one stop on the DLR from Cutty Sark station).
Next weekend will be marked by Dancing City on 29 June in Canary Wharf, which will feature contemporary to classical dance across the area from 12 until 5pm, and another two-day production in Woolwich Town centre at 10pm on 28 and 29 June – One Million by Tangled Feet, which looks like it be an absolute spectacle.
More details can be found on the Greenwich & Docklands International Festival website (one can only wonder how much they paid for that rather unique domain name) and I’ll be reviewing some of the pieces here on the Londoneer.