2024-06-25 08:44:50
For many of her life thus far, she was afraid of the subject of loss of life and closed her eyes to it. However the path of an actress and theater lecturer led her to her deathbed. Michaela Váňová has been enjoying for dying adults and significantly sick youngsters straight in hospital rooms for 4 years. “Some will encounter a theme that has figured of their lives throughout this course of. They’ll title it, shut it after which depart,” he says.
Augusto the penguin goes on his first fishing journey. He will get misplaced at sea and searches in useless for his approach house. Nevertheless, the unlucky state of affairs additionally brings him some good. He meets, for instance, a seagull or a captain within the port, with whom he experiences one thing that he wouldn’t in any other case encounter. Everybody advises him that house is the place the ocean ends. However August doesn’t discover him, it’s getting darkish, he’s mendacity exhausted on the bush and doesn’t know what’s going to occur to him subsequent. The dying affected person decides his or her additional destiny.
It’s in all probability not possible to reply the query of what an individual lacks most on the finish of life. Nevertheless, specialists within the subject of palliative care agree that what’s essential is the sensation when folks can determine about one thing and have management over one thing – such moments often lower as loss of life approaches. That is additionally why Michaela Váňová’s creator’s efficiency known as The place the Ocean Ends is participatory, and the particular person for whom it’s carried out can determine the penguin’s destiny.
There are remotely comparable initiatives just like the Medical Clown or Puppets within the Hospital. However Váňová is the primary skilled within the Czech Republic to attempt an unexplored mixture of theater and palliative care. She subsequently needed to experiment to a big extent, primarily based on interviews with well being professionals and basic rules of the sphere. “These embody attempting to grasp the affected person and his wants in order that one doesn’t mission one’s personal needs onto him. I knew that I needed to create such a efficiency that I may not even end or I must change it through the course of it. I used to be most afraid of that I’d convey one thing by the theater that will make it tougher for the sufferers,” she admits.
However the fears didn’t come true. The theater girl perceives that every dying particular person will take what they want from the assembly. “It is a house that he can use for what’s essential to him. Some are doing it they are going to meet a theme that figured of their lives. They’ll title it, shut it, after which depart. For others, it’s primarily about assembly artwork as such. They have not been involved with anybody for a very long time, as a result of within the hospital atmosphere they’re minimize off from on a regular basis life. On the identical time, they expertise that there’s somebody who’s eager about them and is there just for them,” he says.
A efficiency of about twenty minutes often performs for a single viewers. Generally a member of the family will get concerned, which additionally has its allure. “Then it is primarily a few shared expertise, which could be an essential reminiscence of the truth that they nonetheless skilled one thing good collectively. For the household, it could imply that they as soon as once more noticed their liked one as he actually is. Sickness typically causes him to be gloomy , drained and apathetic. Due to the theater, he comes alive for some time,” observes Váňová. In any case, palliative theater additionally consists within the “peculiar” distraction of hospital days, which go one after the other.
Typically, the go to of the actress extends past the tip of the efficiency. “Kids need to maintain enjoying with me, adults even need to discuss. When it is essential for them to say one thing, it is essential for me to listen to it,” he says. Generally the dying flip to recollections, generally they’re unhappy, then the actress and the affected person cry collectively. However at different instances they keep in mind glad moments. “Generally it is emotions of guilt that they’ve performed one thing and may’t take it again, that they do not have a balanced relationship, or a sigh over their present state of affairs. Generally they share considerations about how the tip will go,” he enumerates. “However they need to discuss, for instance, about whether or not I’ve a boyfriend and what he’s like. After which they want me good luck,” provides Váňová.
Within the hospital like in a sandbox
Initially, her creator’s recreation for palliative sufferers was created as a doctoral analysis mission at Prague’s DAMU. From the tip of the conservatory, she felt that she needed extra from the theater than “simply entertaining the viewers”. She tried to review pedagogy, which was not for her in the long run, then she accomplished academic drama on the theater school.
The essential second was when Váňová ready a efficiency primarily based on the motifs of the kids saved by Sir Nicholas Winton for Czech compatriots residing within the USA, a few of whom had been Holocaust survivors. That was the primary time she skilled the facility that theater can have, the viewers thanked, cried, skilled cathartic moments.
After this highly effective expertise, she determined to proceed working with the so-called utilized theater, i.e. one that’s meant for a selected goal group and often takes place exterior of classical theater halls. She selected palliative care and admits that at the beginning it was not straightforward to get to hospitals. Naturally, as a result of she had no expertise on this path and it’s a very delicate space. Lastly, they gave her an opportunity on the Hospital of the Sisters of Mercy of St. Karel Boromejský and, because of optimistic responses, additionally within the Central Navy Hospital.
In January, Váňová co-founded the non-profit group Vlaštovka, which is financially supported by the Vlčkový Household Basis, and now focuses primarily on youngsters’s palliative care. He works on the Common College Hospital in Prague and the College Hospital in Hradec Králové. She visits each as soon as every week and focuses primarily on these youngsters and their households who’re advisable to her by the workers. On request, he can even go to different locations, such because the affected person’s house. Working with youngsters is completely different for her primarily in that, in contrast to adults, they don’t seem to be all the time in a terminal stage of life. They typically have one other ten years forward of them, they’ve hope for enchancment, or they face a life with vital limitations. Its function additionally differs from interplay with adults within the want for interplay with mother and father.
Within the manufacturing The place the ocean ends, Michaela Váňová tells in regards to the penguin’s journey, obstacles and seek for a house. | Video: Michaela Váňová
She both does theater for youngsters, presently a brand new manufacturing known as Celebration underneath the Stars, or she performs video games with them as a so-called recreation specialist. “Once we say play work, lots of people think about that we play with youngsters, merely in order that they will play and have enjoyable. Generally additionally it is for this straightforward cause. However very often, particularly in palliative care, it’s about one thing else. By means of by video games, the kid can, for instance, title the feelings related together with his sickness or do away with the worry of disagreeable examinations,” he explains.
After the examination, they will replicate on its progress collectively. “With the assistance of puppets and even medical aids that had been there, we’ll act out, for instance, the way it occurred. This can reduce the potential traumatic expertise,” explains the theater actress. “The kid naturally makes use of the sport, amongst different issues, to have the ability to cope with one thing. It is not uncommon for youngsters from households the place there are frequent arguments to play with dolls that shout at one another. This offers him again the naturalness that he would usually expertise, for instance on the sandpit,” he says. On the identical time, he continues his analysis investigating what theater and play work brings to little one sufferers.
A merciful finish
For many of her life, Michaela Váňová was afraid of the subject of loss of life. Or, extra exactly, she pretended it did not exist and did not need it in her life. “Most likely like many different folks, I grew up in a household the place loss of life was not talked about a lot. As a toddler or teenager, I personally skilled a number of deaths in my environment, and for me it was a scarecrow that I didn’t need in my life. Palliative care started for me with the expertise of loss of life to straighten, now I understand it as pure,” she thinks.
At this time, he perceives that loss of life could be merciful in a approach because of palliative care. “To have an interest, to adapt the situations to the dying particular person in order that he feels pretty much as good as potential or at the very least to make it extra bearable. Whether it is an anticipated loss of life, it’s all the time potential to convey at the very least some pleasure to those moments. It is a aid for me as an artist,” she says.
Adamczyková overtly: Dying is taboo within the Czech Republic. It helps me to joke in regards to the loss of life of my mother and father (7/19/2023)
Snowboardcrosser Eva Adamcyzková, a participant within the dance competitors StarDance, was the visitor of the Highlight present. | Video: Jakub Zuzánek