Puppets, pearls and sequins. Old photos and family paraphernalia. Gramophones and X-rays. The Third Hand is a panopticon of energetically charged puppets and objects – a revue-like microcosm providing unexpected, surrealist stories, images and anomalies narrating, among other things, the path of rapid development from single-celled organisms to human apotheosis. Asiatic theatrical traditions and Mexican day-of-the-dead rituals as well as diverse deities and icons are as much sources of inspiration as Czech cabaret puppetry and the ‘alternative’ puppet aesthetics represented by, for instance, Paul Klee or many artists of the Art Brut movement.

Handa Gote Research & Development has been working at the interface of theatre, contemporary dance, the visual arts, music and performance since 2005. The ensemble is particularly interested in post-dramatic theatre and non-linear narratives. With their project The Third Hand, Handa Gote returns to puppetry, following the path of their previous production Sapphire Head, a reconstruction of a long-forgotten puppet project from the 1990s. Thanks to its subtle humour, Handa Gote’s latest production is as unpredictable and surprisingly unconventional as ever.