SMA’ SHOT TAKEOVER
Three-day event planned
Details have been revealed for a three-day arts festival that will take over Paisley town centre.
Events, inspired by the town’s globallysignificant heritage of weaving and radical politics, take place next month.
The town’s annual Sma’ Shot Day celebration – one of the world’s oldest workers’ festivals – is joined this year by a wraparound cultural programme called Weave, which is part of the push towards Paisley’s bid to be named UK City of Culture 2021.
Weave takes place on Friday, June 30, Saturday, July 1 and Sunday, July 2 and is being billed as a signature event in Scotland’s Year of Heritage, History and Archaeology 2017.
The event will reconnect the town’s weaving heritage and global connections through a programme that boasts almost 40 shows across six venues and two outdoor live zones in Paisley’s historic town centre. Programme highlights include: Yorkston/Thorne/Khan, the Scottish/ English/Indian ensemble touring their new album Neuk Wight Dehli All-Stars
The premiere of Iranian textile artist Paria Goodarzi’s new show Mass Movement, influenced by her personal journey as a refugee rebuilding her life in Scotland
Unveiling two new poems written by author and journalist Kirstin Innes and award-winning novelist, playwright and performer Alan Bissett at the Sma’ Shot Poetry Slam
An outdoor family ceilidh, mass drum-off and two live music stages – main stage in Abbey Close, hosted by DJs and an outdoor stage at Paisley Arts Centre, hosted by Celtic Music radio
Live music zones at Paisley Arts Centre and Shuttle Street on Saturday from noon until 10pm with Paisley Music Guild, Renfrewshire Trad, Create Renfrewshire, LNP and Brick Lane and in The Cave, Shuttle Street on Sunday from 1pm to 10pm and
A poetry slam, storytelling sessions, and a series of talks, tours, workshops and demonstrations from local artists and designers, including traditional Paisley shawl weaving.
The event will also include all the traditional Sma’ Shot Day elements on the Saturday, including a parade through the town led by performance experts Walk the Plank, historic re-enactments by Paisley’s PACE theatre group and a pyrotechnic Burning of the Cork show outside Paisley Abbey.
The full bill of events can be viewed online at www. paisley2021. co. uk and some of the acts include musician Johnny Barr, ceramic artist Karen Hanvidge and poet Shaun Moore – joined Linda Morrison, of Paisley’s Sma’ Shot Cottages, which recreates an 18th century weavers’ home and will be open over the event weekend.
Paisley 2021 bid director Jean Cameron said: “Sma’ Shot Day is an established favourite in the town’s events calendar – but with Weave this year making it a weekend-long event, it will be bigger and better.
“Paisley’s bid to be UK City of Culture 2021 aims to allow the creative talent for which the town is famed to exhibit their exemplary work in this cultural programme alongside established artists.
“So it is great to see the bill for Weave mixing a strong international strand with a showcase of the best musical and artistic performers from the area.”
Sma’ Shot Day marks the victory of Paisley’s weavers in an industrial dispute over payment for the Sma’ (small) Shot thread, which was unseen but held the famous Paisley-patterned cashmere shawls together.
A long fight and political battle ensued which the weavers eventually won and saw the traditional first-weekend-in-July holiday renamed Sma’ Shot Day.