Four highlights of Greenwich + Docklands International Festival

Fiona Hughes picks her four highlights of Greenwich + Docklands International Festival 
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Fiona Hughes21 June 2016

Silence

In 1993 Polish theatre company Teatr Biuro Podrózy created an outdoor show that became a measure for all street theatre. Called Carmen Funebre (Funeral Song), it was based on testimonies of civilians caught up in the Bosnian conflict.

The resulting spectacle of fire, stilts, terrifying leather masks and whips and physically brilliant performances proved so affecting that it still tours today, and was recently seen in a refugee camp in Lebanon. Greenwich

+ Docklands International Festival (GDIF) has commissioned a 50-minute follow-up show from the company, Silence, to pick up the ever-present story of flight from war.

Info: 10pm, June 30-July 1, Bethnal Green Gardens, E2

Greenwich Fair

Crowds of 200,000 or more revellers would descend on Greenwich Fair for what Dickens called “a three days’ fever”, until the annual gathering was shut down in 1857 for debauchery. Degeneracy is unlikely to feature in the GDIF version, but there will be 30-odd outdoor theatre, music and circus shows to choose from. Highlights include Peregrinus, a witty piece about the daily grind; daredevil dance-acrobatics on super-sized columns in Block; and a regrettably timely show about football thuggery called HOH (House of Hooligans).

Info: 1pm-9.30pm, Saturday; noon-7pm, Sunday, Greenwich town centre, SE10

Dancing City

Ten short alfresco performances dotted around the well-turned out squares of Canary Wharf include

You and I Know, a wheelchair pas de deux choreographed for GDIF by Arlene Phillips.

Info: 1pm-5.30pm, July 1-2, Canary Wharf, E14

The People Build

In partnership with the London Festival of Architecture, French artist Olivier Grossetête will lead a two-day monumental mass build with cardboard blocks and — because what goes up must come down — a mass demolition. His reference points will include local industrial architecture such as the former Bryant and May match factory and the forthcoming temples to culture in the park that have been dubbed Olympicopolis.

Info: 11am-8pm, Saturday; 5pm-7pm, Sunday, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, E20

How to spend your summer

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