La Parade Amoureuse on Roman Road
This year, La Parade Amoureuse will have its UK premiere on Roman Road as part of the Greenwich & Docklands International Festival.
About Greenwich & Docklands International Festival
The Greenwich & Docklands International Festival, was founded in 1996 and aims to mix up the types of outdoor performance available in the UK. In 2017, over 100,000 people attended shows around Greenwich and East London as part of the festival.
Since its inaugural year, the festival has showcased some of the best contemporary dance, theatre and performance arts in the world. Luckily for us, Roman Road is one of its favourite places to perform.
Bradley Hemming, art director and founder, says ‘The Roman is such a perfect street for procession performances. The long straight road gives such a perfect backdrop.’
In previous years, performances here have included interactions with Roman Road market traders, and due to the market, traffic can easily be suspended, making it a perfect street for such an event.
Previous performances have included parades of giant insects one year and giant puppets another. The processions have always been massively popular with local people attracting young and old to the Roman who crowd around trying to get the best snaps of this awe inspiring sight on their camera phone.
Many of the performances take place in Tower Hamlets as the diversity and innovation seen in these performances is supposed to represent one of the most ‘vibrant and exciting boroughs’ explains Hemming.
This year’s La Parade Amoureuse performance
This year, the UK premiere of La Parade Amoureuse will take place on Roman Road. It usually starts near Gladstone Place.
A herd of illuminated deer will make their way slowly down the Roman in a processional dance performance by French street theatre company, Remue Ménage.
This parade is a tribute to nature in the heart of one of London’s most populous boroughs. The parade is ‘poetic and about love, but in a way that everyone, even tiny children, can understand’ says Hemming.
For more information about the event, see our La Parade Amoureuse event listing.
For lineup information on the rest of the festival including a free programme of events in every outdoor space in Canary Wharf, head to the Greenwich and Docklands International Festival website.
If you like this, you might like our piece on the origins of the East End Film Festival.