Preview: Certain Blacks Presents Ensemble Festival 2025
Ensemble Festival 2025 | 26–27 July 2025 | Royal Victoria Docks | FREE
Ensemble Festival is back, and if you’re into circus, dance, physical theatre and live art – this one’s for you.
Curated by the arts development organisation Certain Blacks, Ensemble Festival 2025 is a free, outdoor arts weekender packed with wild ideas and beautiful moments. We’re talking aerial theatre about hugging, mythological dance mashups, a clown show about screen addiction, and a trapeze duet exploring hope for the future.
“Ensemble represents everything we’re about at Certain Blacks,” says Artistic Director Clive Lyttle. “Bringing diverse artists from the margins into the mainstream.”
Here’s a taste of what to expect:
Hydropunk – An interactive, water-soaked installation from Artizani and Tenderfoot Theatre. Punk meets eco-playground (main picture).
Waiting Song – a trapeze duet from circus director Mish Weaver, exploring how the stories we tell ourselves about tomorrow shape how we move today.
NoMo – an inventive clown show about the screens we can’t stop staring at, from acclaimed physical comedian Tiago Fonseca.
Tell Me – Chinese pole acrobatics tackle the stigma around HIV in this piece from Sadiq Ali Company. “Over a decade after my diagnosis, I’m still here,” says Ali. “Instead of preparing for an ending, I’m premiering a show.” Raw, physical, and defiant work.
Hug – Levantes Dance Theatre deliver a moving aerial piece about the world’s most universal gesture. As creator Eleni Edipidi puts it: “A hug can spark joy, dissolve barriers, and bring us closer together.”
The Hide – An audio birdwatching experience inspired by a White-Tailed Eagle with a missing talon. “His story allowed me to see myself as part of the natural, wild landscape,” says Tilly Ingram, reflecting on disability and ‘survival of the fittest’.
Roots to Rise – Dance, poetry, and ancestral reconnection from Nandita Shankardass.
Palais de Danse – Olivier winner Francesca Baglione – aka Miss High Leg Kick – channels 1950s British dance halls mayhem in a multi-sensory, wacky time warp of a show. “Steve Nice plays it straight as the local lothario,” says Miss High Leg Kick, “though his fabulously camp energy may stretch your disbelief”.
Holy Dirt – physical theatre legend David Glass & the internationally renowned Vidya Productions unite earth, myth and movement with a fusion of Indian performance traditions and modern physical theatre.
Truth – Outdoor artists Ramshacklicious and inclusive theatre company Hijinx close the weekend with a revolutionary street theatre blowout.
Ensemble Festival isn’t your standard circus-and-stilts kind of affair. It’s messy in the best way — emotionally smart, socially urgent, deeply joyful. It’s art with something to say (and occasionally yell from a trapeze). And it’s all totally free!
This content is brought to you via a paid partnership between To Do List and Certain Blacks.
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.
