Little Amal at Adelaide Festival

Arriving in Adelaide on a boat, little Amal’s excitement swells as she prepares to explore this new land. Stepping onto the shore, she becomes curious as she finds a magnificent, albeit lifeless, whale by the river.

However, before she could investigate further, the city’s warm embrace and a grand welcome stole her attention, guiding her towards a welcome to country smoking ceremony.

This is a past event that took place on 15 March 2024 at 10:00am

Amal gets ready to visit a school. She is excited and wants to see all the things that kids in Adelaide learn but then she sees a funny looking ball…

She joins the Port Adelaide football students as they teach her the AFL rules. All eyes are on Amal as she takes a shot at scoring a goal.

This is a past event that took place on 15 March 2024 2024

Amal is in the bustling heart of Adelaide. She is excited to meet the mayor but on the way there are so many interesting things to see, so many tasty things to try and so many wonderful people to say hi to.  Will she be late for her important meeting?

This is a past event that took place on 15 March 2024 at 5:30pm

Little Amal is lost at night inside a beautiful garden but she is not afraid because she is not alone. She meets a tiny snail who is also lost, desperately seeking her mother. Amal follows the snail trail, determined to reunite them once again.

This is a past event that took place on 15 March 2024

Amal encounters the Semaphore community as she makes her way to the beach.

She is accompanied by a local band and joyfully skips along the sand to the sea!

This is a past event that took place on 16 March 2024 at 11:00am

As Amal wanders through the university campus she is captivated by the mesmerising Floods of Fire Citizens Orchestra and tries to join in.

This is a past event that took place on 16 March 2024 at 6:00pm

When Amal catches wind of a game across the river, she can’t resist tagging along with the lively Port Adelaide fans. She follows the sounds of drummers as they boisterously march across the footbridge towards the match.

This is a past event that took place on 17 March 2024 at 2:30pm.

Reuniting with the friends she made during her time in Adelaide – the musicians she danced alongside and the artists she performed with – Amal’s heart swells with joy.  As the sun sets on Amal’s last evening in Adelaide, she joins Electric Fields on stage, bidding a fond and heartfelt farewell with a wave.

This is a past event that took place on 17 March 2024 at 7:30pm.

Adelaide Festival commissions and champions Australia’s most innovative new work along with presenting some of the world’s great companies and artists.

For more than 60 years, audiences have delighted in an outstanding mix of internationally acclaimed theatre productions, an eclectic array of world-class musicians, breathtaking dance pieces, renowned writers and striking visual arts displays. Enjoyed amid warm March days and starry nights, Adelaide Festival’s celebration of creative excellence makes for an event of truly epic proportions.

Browse the 2024 festival programme: www.adelaidefestival.com.au/whats-on/

The Walk Productions is a not-for-profit company, founded by David Lan and Tracey Seaward. The Artistic Director is Amir Nizar Zuabi, the Executive Producer is Sarah Loader and the Associate Producer is Alice Evans.

We present large scale participatory public art that brings communities together to celebrate art, community and each other, challenge assumptions, rethink narratives and provoke change. We believe art is an essential means of tackling urgent issues. To face the world’s biggest problems and help to create lasting change, we need to dream big and act boldly.

Handspring Puppet Company was founded by Artistic Director Adrian Kohler and Executive Producer Basil Jones in 1981 in Cape Town, South Africa, and has grown under their leadership for 40 years.

Handspring’s work has been presented in more than 30 countries around the world. The company is widely recognised as South Africa’s pre-eminent puppet theatre company with work spanning four decades of creating theatre for adults and children.

The run-away hit play War Horse, produced by the National Theatre in London, established Handspring as one of the most important puppet companies in the world. This success has afforded the company the opportunity to further develop the art form they are so passionate about.

Amir Nizar Zuabi is an award-winning playwright and director. He was the founding Artistic Director of ShiberHur Theater Company, an Associate Director of the Young Vic Theatre, a member of the United Theaters Europe for artistic achievement, and an alumni of The Sundance Institute Theatre Program.

Following his work on The Walk, in January 2022 he took up the role of Artistic Director of The Walk Productions Limited.

His writing and directing credits include I am Yusuf and This is my Brother, In the Penal Colony, Oh My Sweet Land The Beloved (ShiberHur/Young Vic); Three Days of Grief, West of Us The Sea, Mid Spring Musical, Dry Mud, Against A Hard Surface (ShiberHur); Last Ward, Who Killed You Asmahan, The Huta and Grey Rock (Remote Theater Project, La Mama NYC).

Directing credits include: Samson and Delilah (Flanders Opera, Antwerp); Jidarriya by Mahmoud Darwish (Edinburgh International Festival, Bouffes du Nord and world tour); Forget Herostratus, Le Mallade Imaginer, War or More, Sneeze, Deep Sorrow, Fall Tale, When The World Was Green, Lanterns Of The King Of Galilee, Taha and The Comedy of Errors (Royal Shakespeare Company).

David Lan is a writer and producer. He was writer-in-residence at the Royal Court 1994/1996, artistic director of the Young Vic 2000/2018, consulting artistic director at the Performing Arts Center in NY 2014/2016 and theatre associate at BAM 2019/2020.  His publications include Guns and Rain: guerrillas and spirit mediums in Zimbabwe, a collection of plays and a memoir As if by Chance: Journeys, Theatres, Lives.

Tracey Seaward’s producer credits include Danny Boyle’s Millions, Fernando Meirelles’ Academy winning The Constant Gardener; David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises; Steven Spielberg’s War Horse; Michael Grandage’s Genius; eight movies with Stephen Frears including BAFTA and Academy nominated Dirty Pretty Things, The Queen for which she won a BAFTA for Best British Film and a Golden Globe and Academy Award nomination, Tamara Drewe, Philomena for which she received a further Golden Globe, BAFTA & Academy Award Best Film nomination, the Golden Globe nominated Florence Foster Jenkins starring Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant, and Victoria & Abdul.

Tracey also produced the Opening Ceremony of the London Olympic Games, directed by Danny Boyle and The Two Popes directed by Fernando Meirelles starring Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce which was nominated for 4 Golden Globes, 4 BAFTAs, 3 Academy Awards.

Tracey was Executive Producer on Pistol a six hour limited series directed by Danny Boyle for FX and is Executive Producer on The Palace currently in production for HBO directed by Stephen Frears and starring Kate Winslet.

Before walking with Amal, Sarah Loader was a General Manager and Theatre Producer for many West End and touring theatre productions.  She was the General Manager for the Young Vic, General Manager for Mark Rubinstein (MRL), Associate Producer for ATG Productions and a Production Assistant for Bill Kenwright.  She was also for many years a freelance independent producer specialising in new plays and musicals. Between 2009 and 2016, she was creative associate to Simon McBurney.

Alice Evans is a Community Producer who has worked in the Art’s sector for more than 10 years, her expertise is in bringing Communities into the realm of professional high quality theatre. Alice has worked in many different education departments across the UK and brings a unique approach developed through working at Shakespeare’s Globe producing Midsummer Mechanicals. The main aim of this production was to create a space within the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse that broke all usual conventions of an audience’s role and to ensure accessibility was a top priority which led to having all shows relaxed. The success of this production is reflected in being nominated for an Olivier Award.

Alice has worked as a Community Producer at Theatre Clwyd producing their first major Community Production Mold Riots which was a bilingual, site-specific, outdoor, promenade show including 200 community volunteers. Alice built partnerships with local charities and organisations to reach community members including City of Sanctuary and Mind.

More recently Alice has been Education Producer on Little Amal’s Walk across Europe in 2021. Not only did she produce the Education Programme and Pack to disseminate to schools and education settings along the route from Syria to the UK, she connected with communities across the eight countries visited by Amal. Alice has also curated Wellbeing, an arts programme at Deer Shed Festival, a family music festival in the north of England.

Enrico Dau Yang Wey from Taiwan, is Puppetry Director and Artistic Associate for all productions with Little Amal. They have been a long standing senior member of Handspring and has performed in Kentridge’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse and War Horse on Broadway. They were Resident Puppetry Director for the German production of War Horse. Enrico has presented work through Danspace Project (US), Conde Duque (ES), and for River to River Festival 2018 (US). Notable roles include Shulea Cheang’s 3x3x6 (2019 Venice Biennale Taiwan Pavilion), Dennis Cooper/Zac Farley’s feature film Like Cattle Towards Glow and roles for choreographers Robyn Orlin, Annie-b Parson, and Ishmael Houston-Jones. Enrico holds an MA from UdK Berlin and has published research through Brumaria (ES) and Performance Research (UK). Most recently, Wey performed in the UK touring production of Animal Farm and performed a vocal score rooted in this research for Picnic Sessions at Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo in Madrid.

Bartolomeo Bartolini is a multidisciplinary artist and producer, devising physical work aimed at telling stories to inspire change and introspection, with lightness. He’s the co-founder of the culture-promoting association Echoes in Firenze. In 2021 he produced and developed The Walk’s Bloomberg Connects App ‘City Through Their Eyes‘.

Emma Longthorne is a British actor and puppeteer who trained at East 15 Acting School and The Curious School of Puppetry.

Theatre credits include: The Man Who Wanted to be a Penguin (Stuff and Nonsense) My Other Self: Richard III (Cockpit Theatre) Dear Zoo Live (UK Tour) Home for Christmas (Lichfield Garrick) The Comedy of Errors (Open Bar Theatre) Lily and the Little Snowbear (UK Tour) Coriolanus, The Comedy of Errors (Cambridge Shakespeare Festival) Macbeth (Tristan Bates Theatre) The Snow Queen, Twelfth Night (White Horse Theatre).

My name is Sebastian Charles and I’m a physical theatre performer/actor. Born in the UK. I started my theatrical journey very young as I’m part of a very “performy” family, this took me into TV work in my early teens but I found the love for physical theatre in my late teens which after working with Frantic Assembly, took me to college.

After graduating from East 15 in Southend studying BA in Physical Theatre and Acting, I began my crazy 7 year journey till now.

Performing as an outdoor street theatre clown as my first job post grad, to delving more into dance theatre, to travelling overseas as a lead singer in an a cappella band, performing in Latitude and Riverside Theatre on the Southbank as Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

I’m always looking for something that I know is going to creatively challenge me and a story that I believe in. This took me to Action to the Word’s A Clockwork Orange at the Park Theatre, followed by my journey in War Horse which lasted 18 months. I felt I’d been a horse long enough and wanted to speak, which took me into something a little different and narrated for the English National Ballet. Finally my last adventure before everything took a long theatrical nap was performing in The Bridge Theatre in Sally Cookson’s production of Lion Witch and the Wardrobe, all while selling hats in-between to keep that London roof over me head.

Nicole Baker received her BFA in dance performance from Adelphi University, graduating Summa Cum Laude. At AU, she performed the works of Martha Graham, Orion Duckstein, Takehiro Ueyama, Paul Taylor, and Jiří Kylián. Currently, she is a company member of Eryc Taylor Dance and chrisbell dances. Nicole most recently traveled to Mumbai, India for a three week tour to perform in an exclusive industrial with internationally renowned choreographer Nikos Lagousakos in the 2019 Aditya Birla Group Awards.

Mohammed Smahneh – who goes by Barges – is a self-taught hip-hop and contemporary dance artist. He has won various break-dance battles in Palestine and performed in many international and local projects including: Badke, a co-production between KVS, les ballets C de la B & A.M. Qattan Foundation (2013-16, Belgium); B choreographed by Koen Augustijnen and Rosalba Torres (2017-2019, Belgium);  Nomads Dance Camp directed by Dina Abu Hamdan with choreographers Jorge Crecis, Taoufiq Izzediou, and Samar Haddad King (2014, Jordan); Naji Ali with Botega Dance Company directed by Enzo Celli (2009, Italy); and was a champion in Floor Wars Battle (2012, Denmark). In 2004-5 Smahneh performed dabke in festivals in Spain and Greece. Mohammed has been a member of Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre (YSDT) since 2011.

Yukari Osaka is a dancer, theatre performer, and the director/choreographer of a dance theatre project ENTERART originally from Kobe, Japan. Yukari began her ballet training with Shibata Ballet Studio and continued with Sadamatsu-Hamada Ballet School where she joined their professional ballet company. After she moved to New York, Yukari completed the International Independent Study Program at The Ailey School. She has danced at Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre; a multimedia-contemporary dance company as a founding member since 2006. She has performed a wide range of works by choreographers such as Nikolai Fedorov, Dou Dou Huang, Ricky Jackson, Samar Haddad King, Kate Swan, Susan Tenney and Yuri Ng. She has appeared in various performances including international dance and theatre festivals, musical “Phantom” (Fleure) at Fireside Theatre and opera “Les Contes D’Hoffmann” at The Metropolitan Opera, to name a few. She also appears in commercials and music videos internationally. One of the music videos she has choreographed; “white sea” was selected at Raindance Film Festival in 2014. Yukari recently co-directed and choreographed a performance at the renewal opening ceremony of the most well-known and traffic-filled plaza in Kobe, Japan.

As well as working with Little Amal, Ben Kramer works on film and TV productions across the UK.  In his spare time he lovingly refurbishes old vehicles and spends as much time as he can in his native Cornwall.

When not looking after Amal, Sam Moore can be found creating magical events and transforming spaces for people to explore, discover and enjoy. With over a decade of experience in live events, he takes any challenge in his stride and revels in solving whatever problems you throw at him.