Preview: Greenwich & Docklands International Festival, various venues London

As open air feasts of street performance go, The Greenwich and Docklands International Festival is pretty much the main event, splashing colour over a great chunk of south-east London. It's the biggest free festival of its kind in the capital, and the area's striking architecture, from the brash steel and glass monoliths of Canary Wharf to Greenwich's proud regality, proffers a supreme stage for a four-day riot of alfresco theatrics.

"It's really important to go with the grain of the sites that you're in and make those look as extraordinary as possible," says Bradley Hemming, the artistic director of the festival. "I've got great respect for the very strong vaudevillian tradition of street theatre in this country. But things have moved on. We're always trying to do new things, animate these amazing spaces, elicit in the audience a real sense of wonder and delight as they're swept up in the completely unexpected nature of these events."

Among the performances – which include nine new commissions – Nina Rajarani's south Asian dance company performs Bend It..., a testosterone-fuelled clash of dance, music and giant Subbuteo figures at Canary Wharf, and the Royal Observatory in Greenwich transforms into an African market for Beautiful People. Elsewhere, the Spanish dance-theatre company Factoria Mascara play with water at the Old Royal Naval College, there's a dazzling fireworks display in Mile End Park and an alluring Franco-Chinese spectacle at the O2 arena.

"We've got a company from France called Les Passagers who integrate live art and painting with choreography, aerial abseiling and spectacular effects," says Hemming, "and put them together with an amazing artist from Beijing called Huang Yan. He takes that tradition of the Chinese landscape, which goes back over a thousand years, and leads it in a new direction. It's going to be very exciting."

19-22 June (020-8305 1818; www.festival.org)