History
Noa Eshkol (1924–2007) and Abraham Wachman (1931–2010) created the Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation, (EWMN) for recording movement. The original book presenting the system was published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson in 1958. EWMN is a movement notation, not a dance notation. Its user therefore can write down any form of human or animal movement without limiting oneself to any particular style (classical ballet for example). It gives the notator the freedom to use this system wherever movement occurs.
EWMN offers a new and original way of thinking about, observing and analyzing movement. Eshkol was a revolutionary thinker herself and she believed that movement notation could open a lot of new doors in fields where movement is involved. Using EWMN, she composed five dance suites (Publication) all of them to be performed without music. (When performed without music, the audience and the dancers are forced to focus on how movement by itself can evoke emotions within and set the mood of a choreographed dance.) When asked to address her viewpoint, Eshkol used the example that someone does not swell their chest to express strength but instead the action of swelling the chest causes the feeling of strength. (This is somewhat parallel to the James-Lange theory of emotion.) Eshkol stated that by analyzing movement we might begin to understand how one movement evokes a certain emotion while another movement produces an entirely different feeling. The use of movement notation can also lead to the discovery of new laws of composition in particular dance styles, similar to those found in music or other types of art where aesthetic rules are implemented.
Read more about this topic: Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation
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