A rare chance to see legendary Noa Eshkol’s unique choreographic system in action
For Israeli artist Noa Eshkol (1924–2007), dance was a pure art form, to be practised without scenery, costumes or music. She treated parts of the human body as separate instruments, equivalent to the musical components of an orchestra, each with its own rules of movement.
This afternoon features a special performance by members of her Chamber Dance Group showcasing the breadth and inventiveness of her methods.
Drawing on compositional techniques such as serialism, canon, fugue, etc, she used these forms to create polyphony between various parts of each dancer’s body and between the dancers as a group. Eshkol’s profound understanding of the body and her inexhaustible creativity resulted in unique, complex and beautiful masterpieces.
Noa Eshkol began her professional career in the 1950s as a dancer, choreographer and theorist. In her quest to analyze body movement, she created ‘Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation’ (EWMN) together with her pupil, architect Avraham Wachman. Music was fundamental to her work: she referred to herself as a composer and many of her pieces have titles such as Suite or Etude. Equating each dancer’s limb to an instrument of the orchestra, her choreography had strong resemblances to music.
