JISDF 2025 Opening Night

Piece of Peace

Israel

Choreography and Performance – Ilana Sarah Claire Bellahsen
Costume Design – Yasmine Wollek
Sound and Soundtrack Design – Roi Padan
Music – Arvo Pärt
Rehearsal Direction – Rachel Erdos
Video and Still Photography – Rafael K. Haugas
Artistic Conversations and Consulting – Dr. Hagit Aldema, Aya Israeli, Ella Greenbaum
Special Thanks – Clipa Theater, Idit Herman, Yasmeen Godder Company, and my dear Bellahsen family

A Butoh solo performance exploring the female body as a charged space within a reality of conflict – political, emotional, and internal. The piece opens with an inverted body, painted white. Through slow movement and a ritualistic act of painting, layers of erasure, purification, memory, and longing for a different beginning are revealed. It is a space of compressed silence, where pain and hope, vulnerability and strength, quiet and storm coexist.
A silent testimony from a body that screams.

Ilana Sarah Claire Bellahsen

Israel

Ilana Sarah Claire Bellahsen was born in Marseille, France (1982), lives and works in Tel Aviv. An independent artist, choreographer, and movement researcher, exploring dance and performance through real-time encounters with the audience. In recent years, her work has incorporated food as a central element in her artistic inquiry. She is also a painter, teacher, and mother. She began her professional path as a dancer with the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company under the direction of Rami Be’er (2000–2008). She is a recipient of the Israeli Ministry of Culture and Sport Award for Outstanding Dancer (2007) and the Yair Shapira Prize. Since 2010, she has been a member of Clipa Theatre and has collaborated with numerous artists and institutions in Israel and abroad. Her works have received critical acclaim.