The Mayor’s Thames Festival

This weekend Londoners will celebrate the 14th Thames Festival with an array of art, dance, music and river races. Boris JOhnson will opne the carnival on Sunday night which will start on the Victoria Embankment and will feature over 2000 performers and ending with a fireworks display.

The Festival will be opened by a thousand primary school children who will perform a mass chorus of 8 songs by composer Jonathan Dove. Events will be going from noon until 10pm on both days. Here are some of the events to watch out for , courtesy of the Evening Standard:

SATURDAY

Zone 1: Westminster Bridge to Waterloo Bridge, Jubilee Gardens, Royal Festival Hall: acoustic folk-rock band Poppy & Friends and Taekwondo martial arts demonstrations

Zone 2: Waterloo Bridge to Blackfriars Bridge, National Theatre, Bernie Spain Gardens, Oxo Tower, Victoria Embankment: chainsaw-juggling French circus Archaos at a photographic exhibition at the Bargehouse, Oxo Tower Wharf

Zone 3: Blackfriars Bridge to London Bridge, Tate Modern, Southwark Bridge, Borough Market, Hibernia Wharf: a feast at Southwark Bridge in the evening and join in firing pots made from Thames clay by the Globe Theatre

Zone 4: London Bridge to Tower Bridge and beyond: a 1,000-strong children’s choir, a tall ship celebrating composer Chopin’s birthday and the Thames Festival River Parade featuring barges to yachts

SUNDAY
Zone 1: Thames Beach, plus Korean culture in Jubilee Gardens and an evening performance by Crystal Palace-born Mercury award-winning rapper Speech Debelle

Zone 2: House of Fairy Tales’ Travelling Art Circus and the Night Carnival and end-of-festival fireworks display at 9.45pm on Victoria Embankment

Zone 3: Get grooving on the Jive Stage near the Tate Modern Forecourt with its al fresco ballroom teaching swing, jive and lindy-hop. Each day starts with an open dance class

Zone 4: On both days, see A River Enquiry — a specially-commissioned series of works for the Mayor’s Thames Festival, including a piece that hauls up buckets of river water to create a paddling pool.

You can get more information at the Thames Festival website and download a festival map here.

http://www.thamesfestival.org/