With a first-of-its-kind visual spectacle and gravity-defying dance, a sprinkling of politics and an overarching message of ‘hope’, Greenwich and Docklands International Festival (GDIF) returns for 2023, with 35 free events – including three world premieres! – spread across seventeen days.
It’s been a tough three years for London’s leading outdoor arts festival. It was hoping to bounce back to full capacity last year, following the Covid-shaddowed summers of 2020 and 2021 (to which it adapted remarkably).
But on September 8 2022, the death of Queen Elizabeth II meant the festival got pulled midway through, losing half its programme and thousands of visitors as the country went into a respectful period of mourning.
Ellie Harris, executive producer of GDIF
Fourth time lucky, then, as it comes somersaulting into parks, dangling off landmark buildings and bringing splashes of vibrant colour to rural wasteland, bearing a theme of ‘Acts of Hope’.
In the words of the festival’s executive producer Ellie Harris, who has been with GDIF for the past five years, “we’re inviting Londoners to come together for uplifting moments of shared wonder and connection… [for] pockets of hope and exciting street theatre.”
Hope is also for the festival to attract pre-pandemic numbers of visitors this year – roughly 75,000. With the cost of living crisis reaching breaking point and our purses being squeezed tighter than ever, the arrival of an international arts festival showcasing world-class multidisciplinary spectacles for free is especially welcome.
“The fact it’s free is really important. If you’re going into public spaces, you’ve got to give something back.
“It’s not about excluding people or taking those spaces away from anyone. Everyone should have access to culture, incredible art, and international work as well as national work,” stresses Ellie.
Bouncing Narratives. Photo: Josh Lake
In a new feat for the festival, it has recently been awarded platinum status for access provision thanks to its profiling of deaf and disabled artists as well as ensuring the festival website and events are accessible to audience members with additional needs.
“We’re the first UK festival to have been awarded this accolade,” Ellie points out, proudly.
“We have pretty good representation of disabled work in the festival, especially in our opening weekend with Greenwich Fair,” she says, citing Rodney Bell and Chloe Loftus’ aerial piece The Air Between Us, performed in wheelchairs, as a particular highlight.
Another colourful favourite will likely be Ancient Futures, a story-led fusion of West African folklore, fantasy and science fiction, dressed as a fluorescent riot and set to new music by the rapper Afrikan Boy.
“The costumes alone are incredible,” enthuses Ellie. “It’s such an exciting piece to be coming to The Moorings in Thamesmead, where we’ve worked for a number of years now… It’s going to be a carnival of circus and sound.”
Beyond the more eye-grabbing, wow-factor spectacles, GDIF continues to champion International work with a political message.
“As a free festival in public space, we have a responsibility to respond to world events. It has to be about the world real people are experiencing,” Ellie comments, reminding me that in 2022, they ran an event about Ukrainian art being destroyed, and before that, they platformed work responding to the murder of George Floyd.
This year, Woman, Life Freedom!, a world premiere presented by Ameena Hamid Productions, is a rallying cry about the protests in Iran following the suspicious death-in-custody of Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for not wearing the hijab.
While the protests in Iran are the backdrop for the piece, Ellia stresses it’s really a commentary on protests happening all over the world.
“The focus of this piece is the absence of song and dance in countries, not just in Iran, [but] so many places in the world where human rights are being taken away or diminished,” she says.
“It’s reimagining the word protest and moving towards a hopeful future.”
Sliding Slope. Photo: Ben Nienhuis
GDIF is also on a “sustainability journey as a festival and as an organisation”, and this is explored in Sliding Slope, a heart-in-mouth spectacle set on a river, where performers cling to the roof of a building submerged in water.
It’s inspired by the North Sea Flood of 1953, but it’s also a commentary on rising sea levels and the worsening effects of global warming.
Just one show, The Architect, is ticketed this year (£12pp), and this is because it takes place on a double decker bus, strictly limiting the audience capacity.
It sounds like a remarkable piece: written to coincide with the 30-year anniversary of the murder of Stephen Lawrence, who aspired to become an architect, it’s the brainchild of theatremakers Mojisola Adebayo, Roy Williams and Matthew Xia, with the help of the Actors Touring Company, and takes audiences on a bus tour through south-east London, imagining Stephen’s vision for an alternate city.
“It’s celebrating black stories and hope,” says Ellie. “There’s a real urgency behind this work.”
Even though it’s ticketed, a number of free seats will be made available to locals.
Beyond the borough, Cygnus sees a regatta of twelve illuminated swans perform a poetic ballet on the surface of the Royal Victoria Dock, and Bandaloop’s Resurgam promises a vertical dance performed on the side of St Paul’s Cathedral.
While not in the borough of Greenwich, St Paul’s, like many local landmarks, was designed by Sir Christopher Wren. Taking its name from the inscription carved onto the south portico of the cathedral meaning ‘I shall rise’, “it’s about what it means to be optimistic when it’s challenging,” Ellie reflects.
There are returning favourites too.
On Your Doorstep will once again bring pockets of the festival deeper into neighbourhoods including Abbey Wood, Deptford, Eltham and Glyndon.
Dancing City – practically a festival within the festival with its mini programme of twelve events celebrating diverse dance from around the world – is also back, running over the final weekend on September 9 and 10.
Highlights within it include Bouncing Narratives, Roza Moshtaghi and Shahrzad Malekian’s immersive performance piece, which audiences watch in a shipping container while dancers move above them on a trampoline roof. Another is disabled dancer Joe Powell-Main’s piece with the Royal Ballet, Sleepwalker, which he’ll perform in his wheelchair.
GDIF is taking place at locations across Greenwich and London’s Docklands from August 25 – September 10.
Admission: FREE (except for The Architect, check website for ticket prices).
