JISDF 2025 Opening Night

Elpis

Sharon Vaisvaser

Israel

Sharon is an independent dancer and choreographer who has participated in various dance festivals and independent productions. She danced with the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company and worked at the Dance Village in Kibbutz Ga’aton, with the International Dance Journey Program. She gives workshops in contemporary dance, improvisation, and composition, and teaches her choreographic works. Sharon is a Dance/Movement therapist, and heads the DMT program at the School of Society and the Arts at Ono Academic College. She works as a therapist and supervisor in her private practice, also working with victims of the music festival attacks (‘SafHeart’), and supervising at ‘OTI’- the Israeli Autism Association. Sharon holds a PhD in neuroscience, specializing in stress, trauma, and emotional memory, researching brain-body-mind connections.

According to the myth, when all evils were released from Pandora’s box, one thing remained inside – Elpis, hope. An ancient archetypal force dwelling in the heart of darkness. A thin crack through which light passes. Seeing it requires a willingness to look inward, and from there, to move…
The body is the box – a cradle, space, dwelling – where beginnings and endings, connections and separations are woven. A birthplace and battlefield of heartbeats, breaths, and tears. Within all this, hope lives.
Here’s a living memory, unfolding, an old-new longing. Missing words are present, spoken by the body. A familiar embrace inscribed in bodymind, I was here… here I am!
“If pain is real, so is the joyous light. through and beyond pain.” Michael Eigen

Sharon Vaisvaser

Israel

Sharon is an independent dancer and choreographer who has participated in various dance festivals and independent productions. She danced with the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company and worked at the Dance Village in Kibbutz Ga’aton, with the International Dance Journey Program. She gives workshops in contemporary dance, improvisation, and composition, and teaches her choreographic works. Sharon is a Dance/Movement therapist, and heads the DMT program at the School of Society and the Arts at Ono Academic College. She works as a therapist and supervisor in her private practice, also working with victims of the music festival attacks ('SafHeart'), and supervising at 'OTI'- the Israeli Autism Association. Sharon holds a PhD in neuroscience, specializing in stress, trauma, and emotional memory, researching brain-body-mind connections.