HOTEL DREAM
Spolek Berlička + Sdružení D
An original therapeutic theatre project about dying, palliative care and death created in collaboration with Spolek Berlička and Sdružení D.
- 01 10/2025
Workshop at Sdružení D
The introductory workshop opened the themes of dying, palliative care and death and helped the group sense whether they wanted to enter such a sensitive process.
- 02 11/2025 – 03/2026
Process and creation
For several months the group met regularly, shared personal experience and gradually built an original shape rooted in trust, support and humour.
- 03 09 Apr 2026
Premiere
The premiere offered a strong but non-taboo encounter with death, grief, love and acceptance. The success of the performance opened space for reprises.
- 04 04/2026
3 post-performance meetings
Three follow-up meetings helped the group articulate what changed through the process, what they had learned and what they wanted to carry further into life.
HOTEL DREAM is a hotel inhabited by dead people. Some know it and others do not. The receptionist, Death, together with his companion Mourning, guides them through a journey where each person has a different relationship to loss, departure and mortality.
The performance mirrors how difficult emotions and situations can be held without taboo. It contains love, support, acceptance and above all humour that makes the theme bearable while keeping it open and honest.
David Kuneta approached Martina Žembová after seeing How to Fall in Love with Life? and asked whether she could create a similarly sensitive process for Berlička around dying, palliative care and death. The aim was to bring awareness and show the local community that nobody has to face these themes alone.
The group worked with unusual openness, vulnerability, support and love. This made it possible to create a performance that did not soften the subject of death, but did not trap it in silence either. The process showed that even a very demanding theme can be carried together, humanly and without spectacle.
Participants appreciated that death and leaving could be spoken about without taboo and still with humour that did not diminish the seriousness of the theme.
The group repeatedly named mutual support, acceptance and the freedom to be vulnerable without pressure to perform as key parts of the experience.
After the premiere there was clear interest in reprises because the performance opened a difficult topic in a way that was understandable for a wider audience.
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Spolek Berlička
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Sdružení D
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