Noa Eshkol

Noa Eshkol (1924–2007) was a choreographer, dancer, visual artist, and researcher whose practice radically expanded the possibilities of movement and its notation. Born in Kibbutz Degania Bet in Palestine, she studied dance and body culture in Tel Aviv before travelling to England in 1946, where she studied at Rudolf Laban’s Art of Movement Studio in Manchester and later at the Sigurd Leeder School of Modern Dance in London. Her encounter with Labanotation became fundamental to the development of her own approach to recording and composing movement. In 1954, Eshkol established the Chamber Dance Group and began developing her choreographic work through the Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation (EWMN), which she developed with the architect Avraham Wachman. Conceived not simply as a system for recording existing dances but as a compositional tool, EWMN provided a method for defining, analysing, and organising movement through signs and symbols. Eshkol’s choreographies were characterised by a highly structured approach to movement and could be performed without music, sets, or costumes. Her research consequently extended beyond choreography into the study of movement itself, including the movement of humans and animals. Alongside choreography and notation, Eshkol developed an extensive body of research and teaching. She taught movement and movement notation at institutions including the Cameri Theatre Drama School, Beit Zvi School of the Performing Arts, the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, and Seminar HaKibbutzim College of Education. In 1972, she was appointed Professor in the Faculty of Visual and Performing Arts at Tel Aviv University, where she established a Research Center of Movement Notation. She also founded the Movement Notation Society in Israel in 1968 and organised the first International Congress for Movement Notation in 1984. From 1973 onwards, Eshkol developed a parallel visual practice through her *Wall Carpets*, large-scale textile compositions made from found and discarded fabrics. Rather than purchasing new materials, she worked primarily with offcuts, rags, old sheets, blankets, and discarded clothing, arranging fragments of different colours, patterns, and textures into abstract compositions. The works emerged from a personal impulse to make and gradually developed into an important part of her artistic practice. Their use of collected fabrics established a striking counterpart to the precision and systematic character of her movement notation. Eshkol’s work has continued to receive international recognition through exhibitions and performances after her death. Her wall carpets and choreographic practice have been presented at institutions and exhibitions including the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, LACMA, the Jewish Museum in New York, TBA21 in Vienna, the 20th Biennale of Sydney, the 34th Bienal de São Paulo, Oslo Kunstforening, Norrköping Art Museum, and Art Basel. The Noa Eshkol Foundation for Movement Notation was established according to the terms of her will to preserve her legacy, while her archive documents the development of Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation alongside her drawings, scores, photographs, films, videos, manuscripts, and other research materials.