THE first co-production between Scotland and Jordan begins an extensive tour of the former this month, taking in some of the smallest, most remote venues in the country from Raasay and Wick to Skye and the village of Barr in South Ayrshire.

Set inside a magical Bedouin tent, Little Light is a 40-minute show aimed at children. It is the result of a two-year collaboration between Edinburgh-based Vision Mechanics – creators of innovative puppetry and installation theatre – and the Haya Cultural Centre in Amman, Jordan. Described as a multi-cultural “village where children come together creatively”, the recently-established centre, funded by Jordan’s Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein, is run by the Scotland-educated Dalia Khamra.

Khamra said: “This production offered a unique opportunity for Jordanian and Scottish artists to work together on the creation of a new theatre production for children. The Haya Cultural Centre is one of Jordan’s most innovative creative spaces for young people and Little Light has been an exciting opportunity for us to work with our peers around the world.”

Symon Macintyre, artistic director of Vision Mechanics, said: “Dalia loves Scotland and when she approached the British Council, they put us in touch. We’ve worked in India and done lots of projects with communities abroad, so we’re used to dealing with across cultural collaborations.

“Working in Denmark or Norway is a lot different to working in India or Jordan where, culturally, people have very different expectations of what theatre is, what it means to them, and how it’s treated as a profession.

“You have to work around expectations of what they think you can provide. Jordan is quite a rich country but they are dealing with seven million refugees from Syria. Jordan is one of these real melting pots for Palestinians, Syrians, Lebanese an even Muslims who were forced out of Serbia. It’s a really welcoming place.”

With direction by Macintyre and design by Vision Mechanics’ creative director Kim Bergsagel, Little Light’s tale of a lonely boy whose father is working to bring electricity to a distant village, is performed by Hanin Awali and Mohammad Awad, two children’s performers from the Haya Cultural Centre.

Macintyre taught the pair techniques from professional object manipulation and puppetry, an art form whose history is different in Muslim-majority countries compared with Europe. Whether puppetry is halal is an issue discussed to this day.

“If you are very religious, you might say it’s against the Koran to depict a figure,” Macintyre says. “I know there was a tradition of puppetry in pre-Islamic Persia, and in Turkey. In Turkey, they have a very similar puppetry culture as do Greece. They are more tolerant of figurative art and sculpture and puppetry and animation fits into that. I’ve met a lot of Iranian puppeteers. There was a dearth for a while but I think there’s a growing interest in bringing it back. It’s a very old tradition. The Arab world pretty much gave us most of what we have now.”

In relatively liberal modern Jordan, puppetry is not a common art form. As the Haya Cultural Centre seeks to lay down roots, it is open to its future inclusion. After its Scottish performances, the team will return to Jordan to tour Little Light there.

With shoes to be left outside the tent, the audience will be honoured guests at the shows, relaxing on cushions under panoramic projections of images, shadows and light while the performers tell the poignant story through dance, shadow and puppetry.

“Hanin and Mohammad had very little experience of puppetry,” says Macintyre of the show’s performers. “A little bit but nothing to this level of being a proper, full-scale production, with lighting and sound and all the stage-management team that you would take on tour to Scotland to make sure you were giving people the best possible production you could give them. That was the objective: to train some puppeteers and to develop a show with them in a way that they could showcase their skills and feel ownership of it all.”

Macintyre adds: “Exporting those skills was a tactful process and very informative too. It reminded me that sometimes we forget that people in children’s theatre are a very skilled group of people, and that Scotland has some of the best children’s theatre.”

Mar 21, Raasay Community Hall, 6pm, Tel: 01478 660 358. Mar 22, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Sleat, Isle of Skye, 1.45pm, sold out. Tel: 01471 844 207, www.seall.co.uk. Mar 23, Lyth Arts Centre at Pulteneytown People’s Project, Wick, 6.30pm, lytharts.org.uk.

Mar 25, Paisley Arts Centre, 2pm, boxoffice.renfrewshire.gov.uk. Mar 29, Barr Village Hall, 2pm. thegaiety.co.uk Mar 30, Nairn Community & Arts Centre, 2pm, www.nairncc.co.uk Mar 31, Eden Court, Inverness, 1.30pm, www.eden-court.co.uk

Apr 1, Forres Town Hall, 2pm, universalhall.co.uk. Apr 2, Byre Theatre, St Andrews, 2pm, byretheatre.com Apr 4, North Edinburgh Arts, 1.30pm, northedinburgharts.co.uk.

Apr 5, FTH Falkirk, 11am, www.falkirkcommunitytrust.org. Apr 6, Theatre Royal, Dumfries, 2pm, www.theatreroyaldumfries.co.uk. Apr 7, Brunton Theatre, Musselburgh, 2pm. www.thebrunton.co.uk. Apr 10, Cumbernauld Theatre, 1.30pm. www.cumbernauldtheatre.co.uk.

Apr 11, The Village Storytelling Centre, Glasgow, 1pm. www.villagestorytelling.org.uk. Apr 12, The Lemon Tree, Aberdeen, 2pm, www.aberdeenperformingarts.com/venues/the-lemon-tree, Apr 14, Dundee Rep, 11am and 2pm. www.dundeerep.co.uk

Apr 15, Melrose Corn Exchange, 3pm. www.liveborders.org.uk visionmechanics.org