A Mano by El Patio Teatro at Ottawa Children's Festival

With puppetry and animation, the story of “A Mano” by theater company El Patio is brought to life with only clay and fingers.

A Mano (By Hand)

• On Wednesday, May 8 at 11:15 am.
• On Thursday, May 8 at 10:30 am and 12:15 pm.
• On Friday, May 10 at 10:45 am.
• On Saturday, May 11 at 12:30 pm.
• On Sunday, May 12 at 10 am and 12:30 pm.
• By El Patio Teatro, 45 minutes, age: 6+. Watch a preview.

With puppetry and animation, A Mano teaches lessons on the value of friendship, love and sympathy guide us to the most important things in life. It tells the story of a small character with a great desire to escape from a shop window and its inhabitants. It is a love story, a story about small failures, a potter’s wheel, a cup that breathes, two people with great enthusiasm, a tiny pottery workshop and four hands that play.

Since its release in 2012, A Mano has been recognized and acclaimed by critics, theater professionals and audiences. It has received several Spanish and International theater awards such as the Best Show Award at the 2015 Kuss Festival (Marburg, Germany), the Award for exceptional and refined mastery in puppetry at the 2015 Impuls Festival (Bucharest, Romania), and many others in Europe and Spain (Best Small Format Show at the Spanish Showcase Feten 2013.)

A small size show but a real gem full of tenderness, sensitivity, poetry and charm. The manipulation of the puppets and the creativity on stage are extraordinary. ‘A mano’ should be seen and enjoyed by all people who love puppets and theatre creations made with love, talent and sensibility”.

—Ferrán Baile, Portal Jovespectacle.cat

Moving, full of tenderness, humour, surprise, magic and sadness… A small wonder.

—Jonás Sáinz, Diario de la Rioja

About El Patio Teatro

El Patio Teatro was created in Logroño (Spain) in 2010 by Julian Sáenz-López and Izaksun Fernandez. It was born from a need to share with audiences different stories from everyday life that excite them, or they care about and deeply touch them. Those stories serve them as an excuse to seek out their own language to tell them on stage. This search has driven them to take refuge in objects to alive them in a small format, playing with their own hands, as they do in A Mano, their very first creation together, where terracotta, modeling and theatre come together.

Since 2013 the company has performed in the more relevant Spanish festivals and theatres and has shared their work with audiences of the 5 continents: Europe, America, Africa, Asia and Australia.