Weaving a Tapestry of Welcomes

Somerset House recently welcomed Little Amal, a 3.5m tall puppet of a 9-year-old Syrian refugee girl, to the Edmond J Safra Fountain Court. Part of The Walk, presented by Good Chance Theatre, this production seeks to bring the story of unaccompanied refugee children to our doorsteps.

To mark the moment, Somerset House’s Future Producers Cherece Lucina and Valeria Salina Toro spoke to team members of this collaborative project to gain insight into all the lives it’s influenced.

Words by Cherece Lucina and Valeria Salina Toro

Dance has been used throughout history and across seas to express the variety of human emotions and celebration of life, death, and the experiences between. We focused on the experience of the dance troupe performing at Somerset House to see what inspired this performance. We began our exploration of The Walk’s performers and curators with dancers from the alumni group at the National Youth Dance Company at Sadler’s Wells. Professional dancers Nicole and Heather from the alumni cast shared what dancing meant to them as people and performers. Nicola believes “It's an expression and form of language to communicate and socialise without voice.”

We spoke about the intentions they had for the take-home message from the piece and what they wanted to invoke. Nicole spoke of “a sense of belonging, like we all belong together... Here there’s unity, community, and family”, while Heather agreed, adding, “I think with Amal, welcoming her is like saying everybody is welcome into this”

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We spoke to Ruby who shared their process choreographing the dances. She said: 

“We were looking at the different themes throughout the walk... what images, thoughts, feelings came up for our intergenerational cast. We talked about what family means for people and reflected on our 9-year-old ideas of the world: who our networks were, how big the world seemed, homesickness and new homes. As well as celebrating children and their ability to deal with traumatic things.” 

Ruby wanted to reiterate these feelings in the dance but from a joyous perspective: “We don’t want everything to be doom and gloom and reminding Amal of her reality, there is space for that, but there is also space for giving her something really positive. And that’s what our group could offer, escapism for her”. Our hearts were warmed by the focus on joy and celebration, as this feeling is a privilege often overlooked for its worth. Those escaping a crisis rarely get this feeling, so creating joyful moments is a beautiful experience to honour and share. 

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We also had the great opportunity to interview the co-founding artistic director Joe Robertson, who has been with Little Amal from the very beginning. As the festival was curated during the Covid-19 pandemic, Joe stated “there was a real need for connection and happenings. This could be the perfect project that would allow people to emerge and come together again”. A new focus arose, an "urge to empathise’’ seeing that unity and solidarity around the globe became tethered, as identity and empathy were compromised concepts. Joe continued “this [festival] allows us into a window of what refugees have to go through every day" and as a result  “Amal and their journey and story are humanised [...] She is shifting the narrative of what a refugee is to an opportunity that arrives when you welcome people.” Welcoming brings out the best in us.

This project spans international communities and has created a beautiful journal of in-person interactions and social media records that immortalise the communal joy and interaction across generations and cultures. What The Walk and Little Amal have demonstrated is that people can come together through individual expression, connecting art and humanity, creating a diverse display of joy, craft, family extension, and intergenerational union.

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