Topline:
Little Amal, a 12-foot-tall puppet, is on an international journey to highlight the humanity of refugees. She started in Syria and now she's in L.A.
How Little Amal came to be: Artistic Director Amir Nazar Zouabi Zouabi says the project is trying to create a narrative around refugees where they are not seen as a burden.
Where you can see Little Amal: The tour is taking the puppet to different spaces, interacting with a variety of communities to spread the Amal’s sense of humanity.
Little Amal may only be 10 years old, but she has a big presence towering over others in the form of a 12-foot-tall puppet. Starting her journey in Syria, Amal is on an international journey to highlight the humanity of refugees, and now she's in Los Angeles.
“We created a very beautiful puppet by working closely with Handspring Puppet Company, which is one of the most acclaimed theater puppet companies in the world,” said Amir Nazar Zouabi, artistic director of Amal Walks Across America. “She's got very big eyes, full of curiosity. She's a mixture of things. She's very resilient, she's very vulnerable. She's very big and she's very small.”
Having already toured Europe, Amal is walking the U.S. with multiple spots now in Los Angeles.
Zouabi told LAist the project is trying to create a narrative around refugees where they are not seen as a burden.
“We wanted to kind of think about refugees as potential, as refugees, as people that come with stories and knowledge and different aesthetics and different rhythms,” he said.
The tour is taking the puppet to different spaces, interacting with a variety of communities to spread the Amal’s sense of humanity
“If you're able to feel empathy to a puppet maybe you can extend this to fellow human beings,” Zoubi said.
Wednesday, Nov. 1
Thursday, Nov. 2
Friday, Nov. 3
More details here.