Our Unmissable GDIF 2024 Preview
Our favourite free London festival – which never fails to fill our summer with thrills, spills, and wondrous spectacle – returns for 2024 with another unmissable programme. Here’s our pick of the bounteous bunch…
GDIF Greenwich + Docklands International Festival | 23 August – 8 September 2024
Silence! | Royal Artillery Barracks, Woolwich | 23 August
Opening GDIF 2024, international street arts company Les Commandos Percu return with Silence!, “a storm of sounds and fire that resonates deep inside” which promises to ask challenging questions of our future.
ParkWorks | Stratford Park, Newham | 25 & 26 August
Stratford Park becomes a showcase for family-friendly street theatre, circus, dance and installations, including Ella Mesma Company’s The Rainbow Butterfly (pictured): an immersive mash-up of hip-hop dance and circus which celebrates iconic figures such as Mae Jemison, the first Black woman astronaut.
Patois | Various Locations | 24 & 29 August, 1 & 7 September
British-Caribbean choreographer Jeanefer Jean-Charles MBE “reawakens the unwritten language of Patois, telling a story of culture, lost languages, longing and belonging.”
A Ballad of Thamesmead | Thamesmead Clocktower | 6 & 7 September
Site-specific theatre company Dante or Die present a gentle peek “into how the world around us impacts how we feel about our home”, featuring live folk songs from Abbey Wood’s own Marie Bashiru, as well as the vocal talents of the Thamesmead Community Choir.
Life Lines | NOW Gallery, Greenwich Peninsula | 31 August & 1 September
Lézards Bleus bring parkour back to GDIF with this acrobatic and inevitably jaw-dropping journey around the public spaces of Greenwich Peninsula.
Wheels & Cello | Various Locations | 5-7 September
Contemporary skaters Le Patin Libre fuse street roller skate choreography with live cello music, in the artistic mash-up you never knew you needed in your life!
Dancing City 2024 | Locations Across Stratford | 7 September
The annual day-long celebration of dance returns with a typically amazing line-up of performances to catch in Stratford – including Stopgap Dance Company’s Frock 2024 (pictured), “a tour de force punkish celebration of individuality and difference.”
Check out the GDIF Website for the rest of the fab 2024 programme!
I am Joint Editor at To Do List. I like: nice pubs, film marathons, not doing real marathons, bad comedy, plays/musicals with shorter second halves, and the Oxford comma.
