Stav Struz' Botros | Altar for an Animal

For details and ticket purchases at the Creative Center.

An image of an animal disintegrates and is rebuilt. Through expressions of power dynamics, the work invites reflection on the destructiveness inherent in human behavior toward animals and toward oneself.

In this work, the creator constructs a ritual space that directs our gaze toward the way we relate to ourselves and our surroundings. At its center, an image of an animal disintegrates and is rebuilt within a cycle of human structures moving between violence and consolation, indifference to suffering and support. Through these expressions of power dynamics, the work invites reflection on the destructiveness inherent in human behavior toward animals and toward oneself.

Each of the four dancers comes from a different dance background, and together they form the basis for a fertile movement language composed of elements of contemporary dance, urban dance, and folklore.

Stav Struzh-Butrus (Jerusalem, 1990) is an independent choreographer and dancer who combines folklore and contemporary dance. She is a graduate of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance High School and has danced with the Batsheva Dance Company and the Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak Dance Company. Her work is influenced by the encounter between movement traditions from the Caucasus and the former Soviet Union and contemporary dance, viewing the body as a living archive of cultural identity.

Struzh-Butrus has received several awards:

• The 2022 Minister of Culture and Sport Yitzhak Navon Award for the Preservation and Cultivation of Israeli Cultures, awarded to emerging creators.
• The 2024 Rosenblum Performing Arts Award for Promising Artists, awarded by the Tel Aviv Municipality.
• The 2025 Bloom Award as part of The Rose International Dance Prize competition at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, for her work Safia.

Credits

• Choreography, costume design, set and stage design: Stav Struzh-Butrus
• Creator-performers: Alina Zhutovsky, Andrei Deutsch, Alexei Busygin, Stav Struzh-Butrus
• Artistic advisor: Adi Butrus
• Lighting design: Ofer Laufer
• Sound design: Adi Butrus, Stav Struzh-Butrus
• Photography: Asya Skorik

The work is supported by the Ministry of Culture and Sport’s Fund for Independent Creators, MART Foundation, the Yehoshua Rabinovich Foundation for the Arts, Tel Aviv, and the residency program at Yifat Galinsky’s Nia+ House.