Next weekend, the 10-year-old Syrian refugee girl Little Amal will arrive in San Diego, concluding a nine-week, 6,000-mile trek across America created to bring attention to the plight of displaced people who have fled their native countries due to wars, famine and corruption.
But Little Amal is not so little. She’s a 12-foot-tall puppet operated by a team of puppeteers who have helped her walk among and interact with thousands of children and adults in nearly 40 cities and towns across America over the past eight weeks.
Little Amal is the centerpiece of the nonprofit The Walk Productions, which is producing a global series of festivals and educational events to bring attention to the plight of displaced people and refugees, particularly young people. The name Amal means “hope” in Arabic.
In 2021 and 2022, the puppet was featured in 250 “Walk with Amal” artistic events stretching 5,000 miles across 13 countries from the Syrian border to the eastern seacoast of England.
The “Amal Walks Across America” tour, which started in Boston on Sept. 7, will conclude next weekend with six events in San Diego that are free and open to the public. More than two dozen local arts, education and cultural organizations have worked with The Walk Productions to plan surround events, interactions and entertainment at each of Little Amal’s stops at locations that include the Rady Shell, Balboa Park, Chicano Park, San Ysidro and South Mission Beach.
Then on Nov. 6 and 7, Little Amal will visit Chapparel Square and Friendship Park in Tijuana. That’s the first stop on a tour through Mexico that will visit Monterrey, Guadalajara, Mexico City, Oaxaca and, finally, Tapachula, which is on the country’s southern border with Guatemala.
Puppeteers operate Little Amal, a 12-foot puppet of a 10-year-old Syrian refugee girl, on Sept. 21 in Pittsburgh, Pa. Little Amal is touring the United States to bring attention to the plight of refugees.
(Courtesy of The Walk Productions)
Enrico Dau Yang Wey is director of puppetry and associate artistic director for The Walk Productions. He and a ground crew of about 27 Walk staffers have been traveling the country with Little Amal since September in six transit vans.
He describes the tour as both exhausting and “incredibly rewarding.” Out of habit, he refers to Little Amal as if she were a real person, since that is the effect she has on many of the people she meets.
“She becomes more human the more time I spend with her,” Wey said. “At a certain point, I just want to take care of her and make sure she gets to where she’s going safely.”
“It’s been really beautiful to see how people want to gather around someone and extend a hand. It becomes a sort of moment when they all come together to show support for a little girl who is traveling across this country alone. This whole journey is about creating a collective sense of empathy,” he said.
Little Amal, a 12-foot puppet of a 10-year-old Syrian refugee girl, interacts with children in Baltimore, Md., on Sept. 16. Little Amal is touring the United States to bring attention to the plight of refugees.
(The Walk Productions)
Little Amal and The Walk Productions were inspired by a play presented six years ago in England.
In 2017, London’s Good Chance Theatre produced “The Jungle,” a play about a notorious refugee camp in Calais, France, filled with thousands of migrants hoping to reach the U.K. One of the characters in the play was an unaccompanied migrant child named Amal whose only English word was “school.”
Two years later, Good Chance Theatre trustee David Lan decided to walk from Syria to the U.K. to draw attention to migrant rights. Lan worked with film director Stephen Daldry and Good Chance’s Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson to conceive an oversize puppet of “The Jungle” character Amal.
The Amal puppet was designed and built by South Africa’s Handspring Puppet Co., which is most famous for creating the stunningly lifelike and life-size horse puppet for the London-born play “War Horse.” Little Amal was created in the style of Mexico’s mojigangas, which are giant human-like puppets whose walking and facial movements are created by a trio of puppeteers, including one inside. There are also nods the Japanese form of puppetry known as bunraku and the bamana puppetry of Mali.
At all times, the public can see the simple, hand-operated mechanisms that bring Little Amal to life, including the human puppeteer inside the bamboo-like cage of her torso. But her sad eyes, stoic mouth and her realistic boots and Syrian clothing give her a realism that Wey said creates a sense of public wonder everywhere she goes.
“Children are much less filtered,” Wey said. “They’ve moved through the world without necessarily needing to bind themselves to some restricted social code. Sometimes they see her and they run away screaming because she’s so big. But sometimes they have an immediate reaction to her as if she’s real. When I see a child say something like ‘I think she’s cold,’ it’s such a wonderful moment.’”
“It’s not that she’s too big for this world. She’s larger than life, but our world needs to be a little bit bigger for her. It’s been a really beautiful journey for all of us as people to understand how we relate to all that’s around us and how do we approach things as they change,” Wey said.
Little Amal, a 12-foot puppet of a 10-year-old Syrian refugee girl, on Oct. 5 outside the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn., where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968. Little Amal is touring the United States to bring attention to the plight of refugees.
(The Walk Productions)
In each American city and town that Little Amal has visited, The Walk’s engagement team has coordinated with local organizations, not only to find suitable locations for her to walk and greet the public, but also to learn about the experiences of refugees and other displaced people in those areas. As a result, every single one of what will end up being more than 100 events nationwide have been unique.
In Selma, Ala., Little Amal walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, famous for Martin Luther King Jr.’s protest march there for voting rights in 1965. In Memphis, Tenn., she visited the Lorraine Motel, where King was assassinated in 1968. In El Paso, Tx., she visited the city’s new healing garden, built to honor the 23 lives lost in a 2019 mass shooting at a Wal-Mart. And before she arrives in San Diego on Friday, she will visit Los Angeles for a walk through downtown’s Skid Row.
Many of the stops on the tour, including San Diego, are situated along the 1,900-mile U.S. border with Mexico. Amir Nizar Zuabi, artistic director of The Walk Productions, said this was intentional because the border region is often defined by the issue of migration.
“The essential mission of Little Amal is to spur conversations in communities around the important role of refugees, and visiting the U.S.-Mexico border is an absolutely integral part of ‘Amal Walks Across America,’” he said. “We hope to help change the narrative that has emerged at the border, shifting the misconceived notion of a ‘crisis’ at the border to instead one of opportunity.”
Little Amal, a 12-foot puppet of a 10-year-old Syrian refugee girl, visits with children at the Atlanta Beltline trail and transit loop on Oct. 8. Little Amal is touring the United States to bring attention to the plight of refugees.
(The Walk Productions)
Asked to name a particular location or event that has stood out on this tour, Wey said that it’s not the locations but the up-close interactions that are the most memorable for the team.
“We don’t see the cities. One of our puppeteers said that for us it’s a tour of people and the way she touches people,” he said. “The audience experiences her experiencing their world as it unfolds. There’s something innately powerful in that.”
For her San Diego visit, Little Amal will visit iconic locations like The Shell and Balboa Park, but she’ll also tour Casa Familiar’s properties just north of the Mexican border in San Ysidro, which have been a starting resource point for many refugees arriving from Latin America.
Among the local organizations that have worked with The Walk Productions to create “welcoming” events are: Animal Cracker Conspiracy; Anthony Rundblade; Ashley Mireles; Blindspot Collective theater company; Casa Familiar; City of San Diego; Chicano Park Steering Committee; Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman; Fundación Regalando Amor; Imagine: Brave Spaces; Jewish Family Service of San Diego; La Jolla Playhouse; Majdal Center; San Diego Symphony; Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve; University of California San Diego; UCSD-CASA Community Station; UCSD-Alacran Community Station; UCSD Center on Global Justice; Monarch School Project; Voices of Our City Choir; Vantage Theatre; and Welcome Center at NEISD.
Here’s the schedule of events for Little Amal’s visit to San Diego. Most events last one hour. All events are free and no reservations are necessary. For details, visit walkwithamal.org/events.
Step Into My World
When: 6:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 3
Where: The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park, 222 Marina Park Way, Downtown
What: The San Diego puppetry arts company Animal Cracker Conspiracy will be performing at Little Amal’s first welcoming event in San Diego at San Diego Symphony’s bayfront amphitheater. Animal Cracker Conspiracy plan to feature stilt-walkers, ground characters and giant puppeteers for a collaborative performance with Little Amal.
Take a Message for Me
When: 11 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 4
Where: Casa Familiar’s Living Rooms at the Border, 114 West Hall Ave., San Ysidro
What: Arriving at this border town, Amal, Little Amal will walk through the UC San Diego-Casa Community Station, where a parade of dancers, musicians and students will perform and walk with Amal through the Casa neighborhood. The community will give Amal a message to deliver to migrants on the other side of the border next week. The greeting event and entertainment are being organized by the University of California San Diego Center on Global Justice, Casa Familiar, UCSD Department of Theater and Dance and Friends of Friendship Park.
Step Outside the Lines
When: 2 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 4
Where: El Prado, Balboa Park
What: La Jolla Playhouse’s Without Walls program is producing a family-friendly event in Balboa Park where Little Amal will greet visitors at the Old Globe Theatre’s plaza and will then walk east through the park along its central corridor, El Prado, to the Bea Evenson Fountain between the Fleet Science Center and San Diego Natural History Museum. During the hourlong event, live music, song and dance will be created by more than 50 artists from San Diego Junior Theatre, San Diego Civic Youth Ballet, San Diego Civic Dance Arts, San Diego Youth Symphony and more.
Amal and Sueños
When: 5 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 4
Where: Chicano Park, Corner of National Avenue and Dewey Street, Barrio Logan
What: At this interactive event, Amal will encounter magical creatures that might be part of her own dream world. Local organizations that will take part in the entertainment are Imagine Brave Spaces, the Monarch School Performance Ensemble, the Voices of Our City Choir, Majdal Center and the Chicano Park Steering Committee.
Washed Ashore
When: 6 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 4
Where: South Mission Beach picnic area, North Jetty Road, San Diego
What: Just after sunset on South Mission Beach, several choirs and more than 100 performers will gather with Amal to listen to the waves and discover the remnants of belongings that have washed ashore. Millions of refugees worldwide take to the sea in their search for a better life. There will be puppetry by David Israel Reynoso, original choral compositions by Morgan Hollingsworth and movement created by choreographer Leobardo Rubio. Blindspot Collective is organizing the event with UC San Diego, Doctors Without Borders, San Diego Junior Theatre, Students Rebuild, and multiple schools.
Last Steps
When: Sunday, Nov. 5 (time is to be announced)
Where: Location is TBA
What: The public is encouraged to come say goodbye to Little Amal as she completes her 6,000-mile walk across the United States. Details on the events have yet to be announced. They will be posted at walkwithamal.org/events/last-steps/.
Still to come
On Nov. 6 and 7, Little Amal will visit Tijuana, with planned visits to Chaparral Square, Friendship Park and the UCSD-Alacran Community Station and Embajadores Migrant Shelter. Her mission at the shelter will be to deliver a message to migrant families that she picked up at Casa Familiar in San Ysidro a few days earlier. The event is being organized by The UCSD Center of Global Justice, led by Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman, along with UCSD Thaetre and Dance, led by Robert Castro, and Casa Familiar. After her last stop in Tijuana, Little Amal will continues her journey through Mexico for the following two weeks. Future stops in Mexico include Monterrey, Guadalajara, Mexico City, Oaxaca and Tapachula, which is on the country’s southern border with Guatemala. Details on the Mexican tour have not been announced. Details will be posted at walkwithamal.org/amals-map/.
“Tears of War: Stories of Refugee Women”: Vantage Theatre presents this event where seven local refugee and asylee women will tell their own stories of fleeing their countries, life in refugee camps and resettling in San Diego. All of these women were interviewed in Anne Hoiberg’s book “Tears of War: Stories of Refugee Women.” All ticket proceeds will benefit Casa Cornelia, which provides pro bono legal services to asylum-seekers. 3 p.m. Saturday. La Jolla Library, 7555 Draper Ave., La Jolla. $20 requested donation. (858) 461-8552, vantagetheatre.com
“(Not So) Minor Encounters: Little Amal from The Jungle to The Walk”: UC San Diego Theatre & Dance will present a lecture by assistant theater professor Suhaila Meera will share her essay on the evolution of the Little Amal experience has transformed over the years as producers renegotiate the adoptive gave of Western European and North American audiences usually impose upon Syrian refugee children. 2 p.m. Nov. 6. GH 144, UCSD campus. Free (paid parking required). theatre.ucsd.edu
pam.kragen@sduniontribune.com
