Profile: Arts fuse with debate at Solas Festival

Held on this Friday to Sunday, Solas features a quality musical line-up from Scotland’s ever-fertile independent and folk scenes, including Solas veterans Karine Polwart and Stanley Odd and minty-fresh contemporary duos Bdy_Prts and Carbs, this cross-form, all-ages arts and issues festival will also feature author AL Kennedy (pictured, below) talking about her new book Serious Sweet, playwright Alan Bisset, World Poetry Slam Champion Harry Baker, performance poet Holly McNish (pictured, right), and Kirstin Innes, the deserved winner of the 2015 Guardian Not the Booker Prize for Fishnet, her diligently-researched, elegantly written book on sex workers in Scotland.

SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL

IN contrast to the canvas cities which pop-up around the long-established music festivals, Solas prides itself on a more intimate ethos. With a current capacity of around 2000 people, keeping things relatively small and manageable is both a necessity for its largely volunteer workforce and for creating a sense of community in which Solas can deliver its aim to “entertain, inspire and challenge”.

“I don’t think we would want to be T in the Park, it would really change the atmosphere of the festival,” says Dot Reid, vice-chairman of Solas and its head of programming. “People like this smaller size as you can get to know people over the course of the weekend, or at least there’s more chance of that happening. It feels more like a festival community.

She adds: “We’ve still got capacity to grow, but we’re aiming to become an important event in the Scottish calendar rather than a huge one.”

LET’S GET ENGAGED

THOUGH organisers want festival-goers to be entertained, Solas is not about passive consumption. There are plenty of festivals where you can get tanked up and stagger around stages catching “the hit” before moving on to the next.

Instead, Solas aims to offer a welcoming, thought-provoking cultural space where audience engagement is encouraged (though certainly not mandatory) in topical discussions, workshops, interactive art installations and challenging performances.

“When we started it was really important for us to create a cultural space in Scotland that was principally about the arts but also one that engaged with cultural, political, religious, current affairs,” says Reid.

“Our demographic is very wide, we have everyone coming to Solas from toddlers to senior citizens and there’s a lot of people who really want to engage with issues. So in 2014 we did a lot of stuff around the referendum, for example. Often we find that there are real experts in our audiences and that the Q&A sessions after panel events are even more interesting. We’ve had a good selection of politicians who come and it’s a really good atmosphere in which to engage with political debate as they’re not in front of a television camera. They can be a little bit more free, and a little bit more themselves.”

This year, three newly-elected first-time MSPs – the Greens’ Andy Wightman, the SNP’s Jeane Freeman and Adam Tomkins, one of the new Conservative intake, will join Labour MSP Pauline McNeill and former Rise candidate Cat Boyd for a panel discussion on the future of Scottish politics.

Taking place the weekend before the EU referendum, Reid had initially intended the slot to be a hustings but found it impossible to find a suitable figure to argue the Leave case.

“Apart from well-known outliers like Tommy Sheridan and Jim Sillars, I found that there really is no EU debate to be had in Scotland. So instead we’ll have a general debate about where next for Scottish politics. There’s certainly lots to talk about, now there’s a Tory opposition.”

Elsewhere, former Green candidate Sarah Beattie-Smith will join playwright and new artistic director of Edinburgh Lyceum David Greig for an edition of their popular Two Minute Manifesto show, while throughout the weekend there will be events relating to this year’s theme of Beyond Borders, especially with regard to displaced people.

FINDING REFUGE

IN past years, Solas has collaborated with the Refugee Festival Scotland, which usually takes place around the same time. Though chosen two years ago before the prominence of the refugee crisis – a crisis, campaign group Global Justice Now notes, is really one of poverty and war – the Beyond Borders theme sees that collaboration take centre stage with appearances from real Glasgow Girl Amal Azzudin, City of Sanctuary founder Inderjit Bhogal, Albania-via-Maryhill dance troupe Colours of Life and Iyad Hayatleh, a Glasgow-based poet who was born and grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp.

Hayatleh will talk about his recent experiences working in the currently besieged Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria and the whole strand will be gathered up on the Sunday with a panel session fronted by Alison Phipps of Gramnet (Glasgow Refugee, Asylum and Migration Network).

Reid explains that Motherf***er, a play originally commissioned by the National Theatre of Wales, has just been confirmed for Solas.

“It’s play about war, survival and hope,” says Reid, after noting that guest tickets and some subsidies have been gifted to around 50 refugee families living in Scotland. “It’s a story of Oday Alkhalidi, a real person who has made that journey from Syria to Lesbos to Calais to across the Channel to the UK in a truck. That whole strand of programming is really strong and relevant.”

Themes of movement and of precarious, lost cultures will also be explored in an exclusive session featuring Essie Stewart, granddaughter of Gaelic storyteller Blind Alexander Solas, Tony Robertson, a master of the Scottish gypsy traveller story-telling tradition and Mercury Prize nominated folk musician Sam Lee.

THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL

THE Beyond Boundaries theme is also relevant to a series of events on what some regard as very personal – parenting. Offering fresh takes on the challenges involved in the care-giving and nurture of children and young people are award-winning journalist Nick Thorpe, who will discuss how breaking the patriarchal model of women as carers and men as workers is good for everyone, Sue Palmer, author of Toxic Childhood and 21st Century Boys, and Prof Helen Minnis who will talk about the nature of the developing brain. In typically thoughtful, Solas-style, there will be a women-only session with Verene Nicolas who will share her experiences of losing a child and the pain of not being a parent.

Solas has always prided itself on being an event welcoming to both the less young and the very young, and in addition to being able to explore part of the Bield’s beautiful grounds, youngsters can visit the animals – including alpacas Clyde and Garcia – at the adjoining smallholding, learn some bushcraft and enjoy stories, puppetry and songs from the likes of Sir Moustache Bristleby and The Ed-Splorers. Older children might welcome a spot in the Den – a space where adults are not allowed.

Quite possibly the most fun, the most interesting and least stressfully corporate festival in the country, the only danger is you might not want to go home – completely understandable after a weekend in which you met some miniature pigs, waltzed to the romantic European cabaret of A New International, been captivated by a sound installation about Aberdeen Music Hall and quizzed an MSP about land reform.

Or, as Reid puts it: “Where else would you get to do a singing workshop with Karine Polwart, question the political parties, party with Skerryore and Stanley Odd, have tea with the Mad Hatter in the Little Fawn puppet caravan and think about the refugee crisis all in one weekend?”

The Bield, Perthshire, Jun 17-Jun 19. Tickets £40 to £99. solasfestival.co.uk