PuppetCinema director / Artistic Director Itim Ensemble / performer

Zvi Sahar

Touring works - STEP (2023) // Big Bang (2020) // Planet Egg (re-staged 2018) // Salt of the Earth (2014)

Sahar is an Israeli born actor, director and puppeteer. Sahar holds a degree in acting from the SELA performing school in Tel-Aviv and a BA (summa cum laude) in theater studies from Haifa University.  Over the past few years, Sahar has explored puppetry and established his company PuppetCinema. Today Sahar is Artistic Director of Itim Ensemble which works in the PuppetCinema theatrical language. Sahar’s works have been supported by The Jim Henson Foundation (2013 project grant for Salt of the Earth), the America-Israel Cultural Foundation, the Yehoshua Rabinovich Foundation, the Consulate Generals of Israel in NY, DC, LA and more.  
Using a cinematographic aesthetic, a documentarian’s eye and the tropes of cinema verité,  Zvi Sahar shapes the audience’s focus with a strong and steady hand. He pulls back the curtains to reveal and highlight the backstage business. The audience has the feeling that the show is being created right in front of their eyes! Reality and fantasy are blurred and a sort of double vision occurs. But make no mistake, it’s all about the story.

Itim Ensemble was founded 30 years ago by theatre director, choreographer and Israel Prize winner Rina Yerushalmi and stage designer Moshe Sternfeld (d. 1994). Zvi Sahar is the ensemble’s artistic director since 2018. As Artistic Director, Sahar continues the ensemble’s tradition with research, collaborative creative work and the development of new visual elements. The shows’ performers come from various artistic worlds: theater, music, photography,visual arts, dance, and puppetry.

“At the end of the process, a new theatrical language emerges, which departs from the existing rules and reinvents itself from scratch.”