Guest Blog: Artistic Director Bradley Hemmings On The Greenwich+Docklands International Festival

Greenwich+Docklands International Festival (GDIF) is London's annual festival of outdoor theatre and performing arts, probably best known for staging large-scale spectaculars across Greenwich and East London. It was established in 1996 and, over the years, has presented productions which have consistently surprised and moved audiences.

Festivalgoers have been treated to life-sized crimson giraffes accompanied by an opera singer crossing the Green Bridge on the Mile End Road; a dance-theatre staging of Jonathan Harvey's Beautiful Thing with stunning projections onto block of flats in Thamesmead; and the creation of a photoluminescent sea of names surrounding the Cutty Sark Ship, in celebration of the 70th anniversary of the arrival of the Empire Windrush at Tilbury, alongside many other unforgettable moments.

Alongside the spectacle, GDIF has always put narrative at the heart of the festival, with productions, installations and performances which set out to create deeper connections and resonance for audiences. This year is no exception with Family Tree, a powerful new outdoor production, written by Mojisola Adebayo, inspired by the life of Henrietta Lacks, an African-American woman whose cells were harvested without her consent after her death from cervical cancer in 1951.

The so-called HeLa cells have been vital to studying disease, decoding the human genome, and have even contributed to the development of the Covid-19 vaccines. In what could hardly be a more timely production from Actors Touring Company and the Young Vic, Family Tree promises to be a very powerful, site-responsive must-see at this year's Festival.

Other 2021 theatre highlights include a site-specific production of Dennis Potter's Blue Remembered Hills at a secret location in Thamesmead - until now closed to the public for more than a century. Originally an acclaimed 1979 BBC Play for Today, starring amongst others Michael Elphick, Helen Mirren, Robin Ellis and Colin Wellend, the Flemish company De Roovers will reimagine this classic tale, in which actors take the roles of children, for a landscape carrying memories of munitions factories and more recently childhood games and summer adventure camps.

Also from Flanders, the theatre company Laika and musical ensemble Zefiro Torna will present their immersive production Balsam, combining live music with the creation of aromatic potions and elixirs. Against a background of music, audiences witness a range of laboratory experiments, in which ingredients are transformed using theatrical alchemy. Liquids turn solid; wet to dry; cold to hot, and back again. Oil solidifies to form edible pearls, a bud produces an electrical sensation, a mineral turns out to be a sweet treat...

And the result of this visual spectacle is an utterly sensory experience of balsams, powders, drinks and canapés of every smell, colour and taste, served to the audience by performers taking over Building 41 at Woolwich Arsenal Riverside (soon to be a major new arts venue, Woolwich Works).

Presenting international companies such as De Roovers and Laika is particularly challenging this year as a result of the dual impact of the pandemic and the new post-Brexit arrangements for International Artists. However, maintaining GDIF's long-held commitment to bringing together local and international perspectives is a key priority, with companies confirmed this year from Flanders, Israel, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and Portugal.

And over the next two years, GDIF will be developing an annual focus on Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, which is one of the world's leaders in producing innovative theatre and outdoor arts, through which new collaborations between UK and artists from Flanders will be developed.

Last year, GDIF became the first major live festival to take place since the March 2020 lockdown with a scaled-back, socially distanced approach, which moved away from large-scale town centre destination spectaculars towards hyper-local performances and a greater emphasis on durational installations and events that audiences could experience over longer periods. The learning from that certainly informs this year's programme, which offers spectacular durational events alongside events and performances which take place on people's doorsteps.

Swiss artist Dan Acher's We Are Watching opens the festival with a flag as a high as a ten-storey building raised over Greenwich as a powerful message to world leaders with the power to affect decisions about climate change that the eyes of the world are upon them. He will also present a second spectacular installation, Borealis, in Greenwich and Woolwich, which is inspired by the Northern Lights, offering a mesmerising must-see moment of awe and wonder in the heart of the city.

For the final weekend of the Festival, UK specialists in outdoor theatre and spectacle Walk the Plank will present cross-river events in Woolwich and Royal Docks. It will symbolically reunite two communities which, until the 1960s, formed the single Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich. A series of fire installations will line north and south banks of the Thames with Reflection Gardens over two evenings, whilst the Festival finale, After the Storm, will be a spectacular moment of celebration in which the famous Woolwich Ferry itself will play a central role.

Find out more about the 2021 Festival here

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