Four Exercises in Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation

The single-channel video installation Four Exercises in Eshkol- Wachman Movement Notation features one of Noa Eshkol’s longtime students performing four different exercises of the Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation system (EWMN). In a sequence of four fixed shots, the film shows the impeccably trained dancer in a demanding solo performance involving complex movement sequences that follow strict compositional laws.

These four exercises present a rigorous demonstration of the EWMN system. Each sequence is structured as a suite, comparable to a song cycle, and is based on common thematic material characterized by ordering principles. Although Sharon Lockhart’s video is silent, the exercises were originally performed to the beat of a metronome, the tool that provides accompaniment for all the EWMN dances, referred to by Eshkol as “dance compositions.”

The rejection of music, scenery, special lighting, and embellished costumes—a distinctive characteristic of Eshkol’s dances—reflects a deliberate resistance to narrative and superficial adornment, a method that she called “mono-medial.”

The exercises are staged in a space articulated by large gray sculptural volumes. Each dance is presented in a different spatial modulation of the ephemeral architecture. The placement of the volumes defines the movement in space, forming dynamic axes from left to right and front to back