Initial line-up announced for Greenwich Docklands International Festival

The initial line-up has been announced for this year’s Greenwich + Docklands International Festival (GDIF), which takes place from 25 August to 10 September 2023.

The free outdoor festival includes theatre, art, dance and circus performed in public spaces across Greenwich and the city of London.

Highlights include the world premiere of The Architect, which will invite audiences to board a London bus and take a “life-affirming theatrical journey infused with the experiences of Black Londoners across the three decades since the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993”.

Conceived by theatre-makers Matthew Xia, Roy Williams and Mojisola Adebayo and created with Black artists including Bola Agbaje, Dexter Flanders, Vanessa Macauley and XANA, the Actors Touring Company (ATC) and GDIF co-production is presented in support of the Stephen Lawrence Day Foundation.

Xia said: “Thirty years ago, the UK was rocked to its core by the unprovoked racist murder of south London teenager Stephen Lawrence. The ensuing decades became a fight for justice and revealed the extent of institutional racism across the nation. I have gathered a collective of the most brilliant Black theatre artists to respond to this commemorative moment, and as is often the way with such painful events and memories, we want to try to move through the trauma, and the profound loss towards something uplifting and hopeful.”

Other events announced today include the London premiere of Ancient Futures, an “intergalactic Afrofuturist party” that blends circus, music and dance, which will be presented in Thamesmead.

Cygnus, a poetic light installation, will see illuminated, animatronic swans perform a “mesmerising water ballet” accompanied by an ethereal soundscape on the Royal Victoria Dock.

Performed on a trampoline installed on top of a shipping container, with audiences surrounding outside as well as inside the container itself, Bouncing Narratives offers “a playful wash of images, sounds, and movements”.

And The Air Between Us by disabled artist Rodney Bell and dancer/choreographer Chloe Loftus will offer a “thrilling aerial performance” at Greenwich Park on 26 August as part of Greenwich Fair, a day of street arts, performance, games and circus.

Announcing the programme, GDIF artistic director Bradley Hemmings said: “This year’s festival theme of ‘Acts of Hope’ invites us to come together through free outdoor arts and reflect on hope as a unifying language. Artists and participants have created stunning new productions which explore the possibilities of active, change-making hope.”

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