New Music 20×12 Weekend at the Southbank Centre
Beat boxing, fire artists and even giant wasps are promised in this weekend of musical premieres and activities at the South Bank Centre. Twenty new pieces have been commissioned for 2012 as part of the London 2012 Festival. They’re all 12 minutes long and are inspired by the dynamism of the Games. You can fit rather a lot into 12 minutes – take the short opera Our Day, which tells the story of Olympic gold medallist Mary Peters against the backdrop of the troubles in Northern Ireland in 1972. Most events are free but some workshops are ticketed.
13-15 Jul

Bastille Day celebration at Canada Square Park
This not-so-British celebration is part of the City of London Festival which runs in June and July. Bring your own wine and cheese to commemorate the turning point in the French revolution when the Bastille prison in Paris was stormed in 1789. The anniversary is France’s national day, and so it’s fitting that French acts will perform in Canada Square Park in Canary Wharf in the afternoon and early evening. Entertainment starts with euro ska jazz from Santa Macairo Orkestar, followed by young musician L whose songs are twists on French music, and finally the KKC Orchestra which fuses hip-hop and electro swing.
14 Jul

Vietnam Summer Festival at Spitalfields Market
Vietnam is proudly waving its flag at this brand new festival at the renowned Spitalfields food market, where food stalls from different regions will offer tasters of dishes like the classic Pho noodle soup - often eaten for breakfast in the country. If you’re feeling energetic, try out traditional Vietnamese games like jute-bag jumping (much like sack races in the UK) or the intriguingly named “dragon-snake”, a complex group game involving a script, a doctor and a very angry dragon.
14 Jul

Rioja Tapas Fantasticas at Potters Fields Park
It will be fiesta time on the South Bank for this celebration of top Spanish cuisine. Raise a glass of red, white or rosé Rioja wine in Potters Fields Park, overlooking Tower Bridge. Tapas – the perfect walk-and-eat cuisine – will be on sale from London’s Spanish restaurants and live Spanish music and cookery demonstrations are also on offer. You might return as a wine buff after some workshops and wine walks with experts Olly Smith and Susy Atkins.
14-15 Jul

What are you up to this weekend? Post your tips below.

This video of last year’s festival highlights, which included dancing, bee-keeping and street pianos, gives a taste of what to expect:

This year’s festival theme is Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific.

In a world where we’re able to have our say on everything from who our next chart-topping stars should be to who’ll supply our tabloid fodder for the foreseeable five minutes of fame, it’s perhaps unsurprising that London’s cultural scene is also picking up on the participation trend.

After all, we’re now used to voicing our interests, our approval (or otherwise!), to take part in things online in blogs, twitter, flickr, facebook and so on.

What is surprising is the large number of different London events scheduled over this summer where you, traditionally the passive figure in the audience, are required to take a key part in making that event happen.

Participation, collaboration, perhaps the spirit of communitarianism (?I only recently learnt about the latter hearing about Michael Sandel’s Reith Lectures) is flowing through London’s events calendar this summer.

Whatever the event, it seems, you’re invited to take part.

It’s possible all this started with Antony Gormley’s Fourth Plinth plans. Or perhaps you’d suggest this kind of thing has been around for 100s of years, with the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.

But surely not in these numbers.

Ordinarily, you wouldn’t be offered the chance to decorate a new shopping centre in the name of art. But the al fresco art studio at One New Change has altered that. Until tomorrow, you can see what London mural artist Richard Tait, and 100s of members of the public created to decorate the hoardings near the new shops. With Peter Newman’s new circular sculpture Skystation, you’re required to relax in the installation, look up and take photos of the sky above. Adding your pictures to the collaborative website brings this art project to life.

Once upon a time, you’d go to a club and, aside from a lucky Madonna-esque “Hey Mr DJ, put a record on” request, you couldn’t be sure you’d have any say about the night’s playlist. Bring&Share DJs, who are taking over the Green Room at the National Theatre as part of Watch This Space until 29 August, have changed that. Here’s a DIY disco where you set the playlist. They request you

“Arrive armed with your favourite records, CDs and MP3s and help create this unashamedly unpredictable music policy.”

Smirnoff’s UR the Night have gone one further. In order to get tickets to their collaborative club night at Matter, you have to take part. Hit their facebook page and have your say on everything from which drinks are behind the bar to what the DJs play, and you’ll be rewarded with a pass to get in.

Theatre, too, is asking you to get more involved than ever, with collaborative shows coming up over the summer from Fan Made Theatre in South East London (a promenade theatre production of the Odyssey, suggested by and voted for by members of the public), or if you prefer, as part of LIFT. Taking place in Barking and Dagenham, the LIFT Molten Festival has such a wide range of chances for you to get involved, we can’t possibly list them all here.

Just know we’re excited about Classy-oke at the end of August: karaoke with a live 50-piece orchestra. Oh my.

Of course, if all the above seem a little to restrictive, why not find one of the City of London Festival’s Street Pianos for the ultimate in free-form audience participation?

And we’re wondering if you’re about to go and see something more traditional in London this summer, an art exhibition where you’re just encouraged to go round and look at someone else’s art, or a performance where you’re expected to sit quietly until the end, then take part in a little polite clapping… and if you are, do you feel like you’ve been short changed in this new collaborative, participatory London?