Performance: The Mess Tent Presents...
...a two week-long rolling programme of performances, which crosses disciplines and initiates new collaborations, put together by Sally O'Reilly and Mel Brimfield.
* Indicates new commission
Opening weekend, 2-4 June
Fri-Sun. Helen Frik.*
In an ongoing performative drawing project, Helen Frik will chronicle the opening weekend of the Biennial, collecting images and anecdotes to be interpreted in drawings.
Fri 7pm. William Hunt.* The beach, near the Old Neptune pub.
From performing upside down with his head in a bucket to filling a room with water, William Hunt creates absurd situations in which to sing. For the beach he will construct a vehicle from a rowing boat and a homemade hot-air balloon. Images (above): both from performances by William Hunt.
Fri 9pm. Ian Saville. Whitstable Umbrella Community Hall.
A magic show that celebrates socialism, with the ambitious goal of making international capitalism and exploitation disappear. Ian Saville uses dialectically opposed methods to reinterpret bourgeois magic tricks.
Sat 2.30pm. Ryan Gander. Sea Cadets' Hall.
'Loose Associations'. Ryan Gander presents one of his uniquely associative lectures. With slides and anecdotes, he talks us though cultural phenomena, from Klingons to his Great Aunt Deva.
Sat 6pm. Gary Stevens. Sea Scout Hut.
Not Tony, a solo performance that peels back the illusion of theatricality. Gary Stevens enacts a narrative in which relationships and psychologies are probed and yet remain rather enigmatic.
Sun 4pm. Adam Chodzko. * Sea Cadets' Hall.
Longshore drift, early Detroit techno and other processes of erosion. The artist presents a slide show with a live narration.
Second weekend, 9-11 June
Fri 1-4pm. Art & Comedy Symposium. Whitstable Umbrella Community Hall.
Presentations, panel discussion and performances with stand-up comedian Adam Bloom, artist Bob and Roberta Smith, critic and curator JJ Charlesworth and others.
Fri 8pm. Art & Comedy Performance. The Smack.
Stacy Makishi
Stacy Makishi's work incorporates physical theatre, comedy monologues and durational live art performance. Equally at home in the gallery or theatre, she will appear in Whitstable on a small pub stage to deliver a cabaret-style turn.
Simon Munnery*
Simon Munnery operates on the fringes of comedy, often tipping into art through absurd, offbeat or awkward gags and routines. For Whitstable he is collaborating with a knitting group on a long, long joke.
Sat 4pm. Scratch performance*. The Beach, near the Old Neptune pub
Artists choose characters and read from E=mc2, a script for a Living Newspaper, written for the Federal Theatre projectduring the 1930s in the US. This is an early stage in the production of a performance project in progress.
Sat 7-8pm. Matt Rudkin. Whitstable Umbrella Hall.
Naive Dance. A theatre piece masquerading as a workshop is a satirical take on the world of physical dance.
Sat 8-9pm. Gary Stevens. * Sea Cadet's Hall.
Thought Bubble. Premier of a piece made during the first week of the Whitstable Biennial in collaboration with a group of students. The piece will be an exercise in communication and association, as performers play each other's thoughts
Sun 1pm. Gary Stevens. * Sea Cadet's Hall.
Second performance of Thought Bubble.
Sun 4pm. Paul Clarke. Sea Cadet's Hall.
Ear Opener: Classical Music, Wagner to DJ Spooky, a lecture, with samples, on the history of 20th-century classical and avant-garde music. Composer Paul Clarke explains how the swell of Wagner developed into the fractured and dissonant music that followed.
Third weekend, 17-18 June
Sat 2pm. Mel Brimfield & Sally O'Reilly. *
A guided tour of Whitstable leads the audience around the town, taking in sites of important and hidden occurrences, such as Peter Cushing's view, with cameo appearances.
Sat 6pm. Matt Rudkin, Edwina Ashton. * Sea Cadet's Hall
Premier of a collaborative piece made during the second week of the Whitstable Biennial, incorporating Edwina Ashton's puppets and costumes and Matt Rudkin's devised theatrical performance.
Sat 8pm. Speed Cabaret. The Old Neptune pub tables on the beach
Nathan Penlington's Shortfuse Speed Cabaret is an evening of timed table-based performances. Like speed dating, you only get so much time with poet and puppeteer Suzanne Andrade, poet Tim Wells, magician Ali Cook artist Victor Mount, poet Rachel Pantechnicon and comedian Simon Munnery.
Sun 12noon. Matt Rudkin, Edwina Ashton. * Sea Cadet's Hall
Second performance of the new collaborative piece.
Sun 6pm. John Hegley. The Beach, near the Old Neptune pub
Performance and songs around the campfire with the comic poet and his mandolin, followed by baked potatoes for all.