About Handa Gote

Handa Gote /CZ/

is an art group which alternates instrumentation of sound installation, non-verbal and dance theatre, live music, visual theatre and technologies. Their work is influenced by minimalism, eastern philosophy and the DO IT YOURSELF movement. It is a mixture of Czech craftsmanship, recycled objects and technologies and the inspiration by japanese esthetic categories Mono no ware, Wabi and Sabi.

The group formed in 2005. Handa Gote means „solder" in Japanese.

„The third part of the Pilsen series of Big Inventory festivals was a performance of the phenomenal Handa Gote, which I roughly alluded to in the previous review as a DJ´s experimentory. Their work could be daringly described as DJ´s, VJ´s and all without software or integrated circuits."

Tomáš Kubart: Big Inventory: Dance in Acid Rain. rozrazilonline.cz 27/4/2010

„The integration of technology and media is unique to Handa Gote and creates a highly original signature. We could even say that whatever pawnbrokers is almost always created on stage, as it is in almost every production, by its poverty trip, it inadvertantly arouses in the viewer the feeling that this is yet another of those numerous threadbare experimental theatre groups, whose funding for its operations is hard to come by. So they are pleasantly surprised, sometimes even shocked when this illusion is at least partially shattered by technological magic, which also looks as though it was made under provisional conditions and DIY-style but which succeeds in conjuring up a scene full of authentic dramatic reality full of illusion and deception, relying on many years of collecting very specific, rich materials."

Roman Sikora: Gadgets, Engines and Images of Handa Gote. LN 38/2008

„When something is enacted on stage, we are used to calling it theatre. It is not so easy, however, to use this expression for Handa Gote. This Prague stage group characterise themselves as a project for research and development of dance and movement theatre, music, sound design and the integration of science and technology with art. It sounds pretty laboritorial. Yet we could also easily say that it is theatre of the thirty-somethings, which matured in the company of computer games, with cheap, faulty equipment, in a rockers´ garage rehearsal studio, surrounded by cables and guitar effects. So now it reflects all this."

Pavel Klusák: Czech Railways, No Man´ s Land. Respekt 48/2007

„It is exactly the case of Handa Gote (and also British Broadcast including Mordant Music): without feelings of naiveness they bring esoteric things into the light, tamper with technical equipment which is several generations old, experiment whether they can bring about a return to a primitive state, reminiscent of slightly punk „do it yourself", but an even more ancient, tribal life. Handa Gote was developed without knowledge of their international kinsmen; they have more and more maniacal appreciation, so perhaps the British Film Institute „legalised" a fascination with educational and instructional films of the 50s, 60s and 70s and in cooperation with new artists, published them on DVD."

Pavel Klusák: The World Knelt Down. Where´ s the Restart?; LN 20th Nov 2010

Tomáš Procházka (1973)

In 1996 graduated at the Academy of Performing Arts at the Puppett and alternative theatre department.

Since then he has been working with various projects as a performer, puppetteer, musician, sound designer, technician and visual artist ( Derevo, Min Tanaka, Grifftheatre, Forman Brothers Theatre, Stage Code, Vertedance, Nanohach...).

In 1999 he joined czech puppett theatre group Buchty a loutky with which has been working as a director, musician, composer, actor and puppeteer and also as a film puppetteer/animator.

In 1999 he founded band B4, project for improvising in music and in 2005 founded theatre group HANDA GOTE Research & Development.

He has many other activities in the field of music and specialy free improvisation. He is member of projects Gurun Gurun, Radio Royal and he also plays solo under name Federsel.

Veronika Švábová (1974)

studied dance at conservatory Duncan Centre in Prague, and dance theory at the Academy of Music in Prague. She has so far worked with a number of choreographers (including Simone Sandroni and Jan Beneš, among others), as well as presenting her own choreographies (Obsessión, From the beginning till the end,...). Since 2000 she has collaborated with the Forman Brothers Theatre (productions of The Purple Sails - mounted on board of a theatre boat (2000), the opera The Beauty and the Beast by Philipp Glass (2003), The Klapzuba´s Eleven at Prague´s Minor Theatre (2005), musical comedy by Jiří Suchý and Jiří Šlitr, A Walk Worthwhile, directed by Miloš Forman and Petr Forman (2007), both at the National Theatre in Prague, opera Rusalka staged at Theatre Husa na Provázku in Brno (2008)). Recently she is travelling with the company of Forman brothers Theatre with the project Obludarium, which won Czech theatre Prize of Alfréd Radok in 2008.

In 2005 she founded with sound designer, musician and actor Tomáš Procházka theatre group Handa Gote, which is untill now producing performances combining technologies and DiY approach, dance, visual and sound art. Handa Gote admires Japan culture and esthetics and in their projects they try to resonate with it.

Robert Smolík (1977)

is an artist working on an exceptionally broad creative scope. He studied stage design at Prague´s Academy of Music and Drama, where he has been a teacher since 2004.  As a stage designer he has collaborated with professional puppet theaters and independant artistic groups, he also works as an independant artist.

Other group members:

Jan Dörner

David Freudl

Jakub Hybler

Leoš Kropáček

Anna Ouřadová and others

2008-2010 Handa Gote group was part of the ARTIST in RESIDENCE program in MeetFactory in Prague.