Greenwich+Docklands International Festival (GDIF) returns this summer with a spectacular programme of free outdoor theatre, dance and circus, celebrating its 30th anniversary. Under the theme Above and Beyond, the 2025 edition promises to push creative boundaries with performances across rooftops, lakes, parks and public squares.
Executive Producer, Ellie Harris shares insights into the festival’s evolution, its commitment to accessibility, and the bold international collaborations that define this milestone year. From high-wire acts in Greenwich Park to a floating stage in Thamesmead, GDIF 2025 is set to be unforgettable.
The festival runs from Friday 22 August to Saturday 6 September 2025 across Greenwich, Newham and Thamesmead. Full programme and booking info at www.festival.org/gdif-2025.
You’re presenting this year’s Greenwich+Docklands International Festival under the theme Above and Beyond – what can you tell us about the festival?
Above & Beyond represents our ethos across the organisation, as well as within the programme. It reflects accomplishments such as our Platinum Award for Accessibility for Deaf, disabled and neurodiverse artists and audiences from Attitude is Everything, our sector-leading sustainability work, and our commitment to presenting free performances. We also recognise that it’s all a journey and there is always more that we can strive to do better on.
GDIF 2025 is back with a bang as we kick off our Opening Night on Friday 22 August with a heart-stopping, roof-hopping performance by French company Lezards Blues. Eight performers will be embarking on a journey across landmark buildings in Woolwich. Expect fabulous dance and parkour, accompanied by the iconic Citizens of the World Choir.
We’re so excited to bring back Greenwich Fair this year with a programme for the whole family, taking place in Greenwich Park, the fair’s original 19th Century home, and overlooking iconic views of Greenwich and the City. Greenwich Peninsula will be taken over by a weekend of gravity-defying acrobatic and circus performances from some of the best international artists on the circuit.
Over in Thamesmead we’re taking to the water on Birchmere Lake with an unmissable, thrilling performance of dance, acrobatics and live music foregrounding the climate emergency. And if that wasn’t enough, we’re returning to Newham and the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park with Dancing City, featuring an extraordinary programme of dance from around the world.
GDIF is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. How has the festival evolved over the past three decades?
GDIF started off as a three-day festival and has grown over the years in response to the world around it, responding to global events and trying to remain resilient. Artistic Director Bradley Hemmings has been at the helm since its inception and can tell amazing stories from the former years, but that’s for another time!
We’ve seen the festival grow to a now 16-day event with over 200 volunteers signed up for 2025. We have made waves in accessible programming, we’re becoming more sustainable and green year-on-year, and whilst we’re a far cry from the nineties version of GDIF, the ethos and mission has remained the same: to deliver spectacular, free outdoor performances in public space.
This year’s theme ‘Above & Beyond’ shares the name with the title of our newly published GDIF book, which looks back over a rich history of performance across 30 years and reflects on the journey the festival has gone on, coupled with some incredible imagery and anecdotes.
The 2025 programme features everything from rooftop parkour to water-based circus and high-wire acts. How do you go about presenting such a diverse lineup in public spaces?
We’re always on the lookout for work that turns audience expectations on their head and encourages people to see their everyday neighbourhoods in a new light. As a place-based funded festival, we’re often driven by the location first, and then it’s a creative journey to find work that transforms and enhances the places we’re working in, whilst pushing the boundaries of the possible and the expected.
It’s important that our backdrops complement the artistic vision of the performances, too. Every year we search for incredible hidden gem locations, such as Birchmere Lake in Thamesmead this year for ‘The Weight of Water’.
Being outdoors means edges and boundaries are removed and blurred in a way that doesn’t happen in a purpose-built indoor venue. There’s of course pressure to build on and improve the ‘wow’ factor every year, but having London’s public realm as our playground allows us to come at that challenge creatively, looking at impact in ways other than putting on a big, flashy spectacle (though we quite like those, too!).
Accessibility and inclusivity are at the heart of GDIF. How are those values reflected in this year’s programme?
Accessibility and inclusivity are deeply rooted in our organisational ethos through to programming and delivery, and through both a national and international lens.
This year at the much-anticipated Greenwich Fair weekend, we’ll be showcasing and celebrating Disabled-led work, including lip-syncing extravaganza ‘Classic Connee’ by Daryl Beeton Co., and joyful, riotous performance with ‘Truth’ by learning disabled-led company Ramshackilicious & Hijinx.
Extraordinary puppetry meets Afro-Cuban choreography and Yoruba storytelling in Theatre Rites’ ‘Eshu at the Crossroads’, whilst Sonia Sabri’s ‘The Elephant and the Drummer’ fuses traditional and contemporary Indian music, dance and puppetry in their promenade performance.
In Woolwich town centre, DHW Company bring their intergenerational Caribbean hip-hop and street theatre fusion to audiences, in a double bill with Talwa X Fubunation celebrating Black masculinity and identity through poignant movements and rhythmic beats.
At Dancing City we’ll see piazzas and public realm brought to life by unparalleled companies platforming Disabled artists. Australian company Restless Dance Theatre’s ‘Through Another Lens’ is performed by a powerful ensemble of disabled and non-disabled artists. Joe Powell-Main, known for his work with the Royal Ballet, brings a UK premiere of ‘Passionately Defiant’ exploring Disability pride. Plus, StopGap Dance return to Dancing City with a choreographic debut by the incomparable Nadenh Paon, ‘RO-TES’: a bold and rhythmic celebration of boundless possibility.
Alongside performances, we have tailored accessibility provision across the Festival such as integrated BSL, live audio descriptions, easy read guides, touch tours and more. These have been developed together with artists, Disabled-led focus groups, and disabled community leaders to make the audience experience as rich as possible.
Collaborations with international companies and local communities seem central to this year’s events. What role do these partnerships play in shaping the festival?
International, national, and local representation are all interwoven into the fabric of the festival each year, and 2025 is no different.
It’s incredible to see the boundary-pushing UK-grown work alongside inspirational international performances all together in outdoor space. The international oftentimes throws up types of performance that aren’t as readily made or available in the UK, due to funding structures for creation or the limited dry weather(!), whereas national and local work tell stories, and especially London stories.
London is an incredibly diverse city and globality is important throughout the festival so that we can speak to our audiences.
On a grassroots level, we are working with community stakeholders to embed engagement with the festival through workshops and participation, to enhance audience development and representation. This year, we have a climate-focussed workshop in Thamesmead creating creative placards to be displayed in green spaces ahead of ‘The Weight of Water’ performances. We are working with the Deaf community to lead a BSL tour of Dancing City. Restless Dance Theatre will be delivering workshops for learning disabled dancers in Newham ahead of their performance at Dancing City, plus a host of other local community engagement and work bubbling along.
What would you say to anyone thinking of booking to see this year’s Greenwich+Docklands International Festival?
No need to book! The festival is free and unticketed, so get the dates in your diaries and just show up!
You can check out the full line-up for GDIF on our website to plan your visit. For those with access requirements, our website has a dedicated page including an audio version of our brochure, easy read guides, and much more to help you navigate the programme.
We can’t wait to welcome you back again for 2025.
