A contemporary arts festival, Estuary 2025—Vessels will celebrate the stories, places and people of the Thames Estuary with nine days of performances and events.
The festival takes place every four years across the South Essex and North Kent coastlines and will be held from Saturday 21 until Sunday 29 June.
Artistic director and chief executive Thea Behrman said, “our theme for this edition is Vessels which in the context of the Thames Estuary might first conjure pictures of boats and ships. But the people, flora and fauna of the area are vessels too, carriers of ideas and aspirations, stories and myths, memories from the past and hopes for the future.”
The programme includes Anchored by Scarabeus Aerial Theatre in which aerial performers will “inhabit various outdoor upper deck and infrastructure elements of a ship”. It will be staged at Anchor Wharf, Chatham Historic Dockyard, on Saturday 21 June.
Salt is a new climate-responsive performance by Arbonauts led by Helen Galliano and Dimitri Launder. More than 20 performers including open-water swimmers and students from the BA physical theatre course at East 15 acting school will take the plunge in a tidal pool at the Concord Beach Eastern Esplanade on Canvey Island on Friday 27 and Saturday 28 June.
All events are free. The full programme is available at the festival web site.