It's another packed weekend for those of you not already booked up for Architecture Week or otherwise engaged for the football. The schedule for this weekend's sunny Culture Crawl involves a lot of outdoor entertainment, some indoor events and as always, not a lot of money.
Thursday 22 June
Opening night of the Greenwich and Docklands Festival - all events are free and open air. For this event, you have to go to Woolwich but if you’re not local, the trip sounds like it will be worth it. Performances on a crane, French eccentrics perform street music and “a roving traditional circular bandstand complete with exhilarating party band, pyrotechnics and special effects…”
Saturday 24 June
More from the Greenwich and Docklands Festival, in particular Dancing City at Canary Wharf, 1-5pm. If you’d rather join the fun in the evening, go further east and join Les Roues de Couleurs at 9.45pm on Roman Road, E3. “French Compagnie Off (“Giraffes” 2003) are back with the sole UK performance of a processional baccanal of 30 performers in body paint, with special effects, techno music, and 9m high wheels converging from every direction on Bow’s traditional street market in Roman Road.” Definitely not a normal Saturday night at the pub.
If you’d rather be indoors and fancy some Rhythms of Latin America, the ICA is hosting a two day event of Latin American music. Expect capoeira, salsa, Venezuelan drumming and… screenings of the relevant World Cup matches. Of course. Events start at 12noon and continue until midnight both Saturday and Sunday, with a range of passes to either individual events, all day passes or day and evening performances passes.
Sunday 25 June
See the beasts move in Trafalgar Square! Lord knows what the stately lions will think of them but from 11.00am until 9.00pm,
Once you’ve had enough of moving beasts (that bloody Sultan with his mechanical elephant really set a trend in this town…), wander south for a Hard Hat Tour of Peckham Pier, Will Alsop’s new “floating” raised gallery space just a stone’s throw from the famous Peckham Library. This free tour is part of the Camberwell Arts Festival
Go from South to East at Three Mills Green for the big finale of the Greenwich and Docklands Festival: “Inspired by the fearsome endangered Bengal Tiger, the vitality of Bengali culture and creativity in the UK is celebrated with dance, percussion and new music from Nasha. With pyrotechnics from the UK’s most theatrical pyro company The World Famous.”
Monday 26 June
The London Gay Men’s Choir perform at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in Europride Sings , as part of the huuuuuuge Europride, London’s massive Gay Pride festival. If you’d rather see something from the Far East rather than soak in queer sounds, there is instead The Bee at Soho Theatre with a post-show talk with the director. Renowned Japanese director Hideki Noda collaborates with Kathryn Hunter and Colin Teevan for this “highly charged, tragic satire.”
Don't forget the ongoing series of open air films at The Scoop, hopefully you'll fit in something from the Architecture Week programme and might even see some of the sculptures on view for London Sculpture Week.
