Pause: The Noa Eshkol Chamber Dance Group
25/27 August 23

 

Performance
Friday, 25 August 23, 7.30 pm **SOLD OUT**

Sunday, 27 August 23, 2 pm **SOLD OUT**

Venue: KW Main hall

 

With Rachaeli Nul-Kahana, Mor Bashan, Noga Goral and Dror Shoval

 

<p>Geula Dagan, <em>Summer Evening,</em> 1985–1986 © The Noa Eshkol Chamber Dance Group, dancers from left to right: Shmuel Zeidel, Ruti Sella, Rachaeli Nul-Kahana.</p>

Geula Dagan, Summer Evening, 1985–1986 © The Noa Eshkol Chamber Dance Group, dancers from left to right: Shmuel Zeidel, Ruti Sella, Rachaeli Nul-Kahana.

 

The Chamber Dance Group—originally named ‘The Chamber Dance Quartet’—was founded by Noa Eshkol (b. 1924, PS, d. 2007, IL) in 1954 for performing her compositions, developed through Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation (EWMN). Eshkol danced with the group until the late 1950s, when she became increasingly focused on developing EWMN, composing, and teaching her dances. After she died in 2007, the group was refounded as ‘The Noa Eshkol Chamber Dance Group’, featuring veteran dancer, Rachaeli Nul-Kahana, as well as the new members, Mor Bashan, Noga Goral, and Dror Shoval, who have joined the group since.

 

Dance performances by The Chamber Dance Group are made up of the basic material of all dance styles, namely, the movement of the human body. For Eshkol, dance was a pure art form, in and for itself, to be practiced without scenery, costumes, or music. She treated the parts of the human body as separate instruments, not unlike the musical instruments of an orchestra, each with its own rules of movement. Her compositions rely on seriality as well as on the polyphonic forms of canon, fugue, and so on. She used these forms to create polyphony between various parts of each dancer’s body and between the dancers as a group. Her profound understanding of the body, commitment to the compositional method, and inexhaustible creativity resulted in unique, complex, and dazzling masterpieces.

 

As part of the Pause at KW, the performers of The Chamber Dance Group will host a workshop giving theoretical and practical insight into Eshkol’s notation of movement.

 

On the occasion of Eshkol’s 100th birthday, the 28th of February 2024, a reprint of Eshkol’s seminal book from 1958 “Movement Notation”, written in collaboration with Avraham Wachman, will be launched. The book is produced in collaboration with the Georg Kolbe Museum, which will open an exhibition in March 2024, focusing on the life and work of Eshkol and her legacy in contemporary art and dance discourses.

 

Curator: Krist Gruijthuijsen

Curatorial Assistant: Nikolas Brummer

 

 

 

1/8
Installation view of the Performance The Noa Eshkol Chamber Dance Group at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2023. Performers f.l.t.r.: Racheli Nul-Kahana, Noga Goral, Mor Bashan. Photo: David von Becker.
Installation view of the Performance The Noa Eshkol Chamber Dance Group at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2023. Performers f.l.t.r.: Racheli Nul-Kahana, Noga Goral, Mor Bashan. Photo: David von Becker.
Installation view of the Performance The Noa Eshkol Chamber Dance Group at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2023. Performers f.l.t.r.: Dror Shoval, Noga Goral, Mor Bashan. Photo: David von Becker.
Installation view of the Performance The Noa Eshkol Chamber Dance Group at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2023. Performers f.l.t.r.: Dror Shoval, Noga Goral, Mor Bashan. Photo: David von Becker.
Installation view of the Performance The Noa Eshkol Chamber Dance Group at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2023. Performers f.l.t.r.: Mor Bashan, Dror Shoval, Noga Goral. Photo: David von Becker.
Installation view of the Performance The Noa Eshkol Chamber Dance Group at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2023. Performers f.l.t.r.: Mor Bashan, Dror Shoval, Noga Goral. Photo: David von Becker.
Installation view of the Performance The Noa Eshkol Chamber Dance Group at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2023. Performers f.l.t.r.: Racheli Nul-Kahana, Noga Goral. Photo: David von Becker.
Installation view of the Performance The Noa Eshkol Chamber Dance Group at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2023. Performers f.l.t.r.: Racheli Nul-Kahana, Noga Goral. Photo: David von Becker.
Installation view of the Performance The Noa Eshkol Chamber Dance Group at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2023. Performers f.l.t.r.: Mor Bashan, Noga Goral, Dror Shoval. Photo: David von Becker.
Installation view of the Performance The Noa Eshkol Chamber Dance Group at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2023. Performers f.l.t.r.: Mor Bashan, Noga Goral, Dror Shoval. Photo: David von Becker.
Installation view of the Performance The Noa Eshkol Chamber Dance Group at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2023. Performers f.l.t.r.: Racheli Nul-Kahana, Noga Goral, Mor Bashan. Photo: David von Becker.
Installation view of the Performance The Noa Eshkol Chamber Dance Group at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2023. Performers f.l.t.r.: Racheli Nul-Kahana, Noga Goral, Mor Bashan. Photo: David von Becker.
Installation view of the Performance The Noa Eshkol Chamber Dance Group at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2023. Performers f.l.t.r.: Mor Bashan, Dror Shoval, Noga Goral. Photo: David von Becker.
Installation view of the Performance The Noa Eshkol Chamber Dance Group at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2023. Performers f.l.t.r.: Mor Bashan, Dror Shoval, Noga Goral. Photo: David von Becker.
Installation view of the Performance The Noa Eshkol Chamber Dance Group at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2023. Performers f.l.t.r.: Dror Shoval, Noga Goral. Photo: David von Becker.
Installation view of the Performance The Noa Eshkol Chamber Dance Group at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2023. Performers f.l.t.r.: Dror Shoval, Noga Goral. Photo: David von Becker.

 

Part of project: Pause series

The Pause series of KW Institute for Contemporary Art allowed for an ephemeral yet deep engagement with a single artwork in order to draw and question relationships between the past, present, and future. A Pause acted as a punctuation of KW’s regular program by presenting an artwork for a short period of time in between exhibition cycles, working with this state of in-between. Pause projects were predominantly commissioned or reworked pieces that shifted between or even merged the disciplines of performance, installation, video, and sonic work.

 

Overview

2017–2024

 

Pause: Billy Bultheel & James Richards

Workers in Song

7–9 June 24

 

Pause: Alexis Blake

Crack Nerve Boogie Swerve

27–29 January 23

 

Pause: Lydia Ourahmane
sync
1–2 October 22

 

Pause: Tobias Spichtig
Die Matratzen
19–23 January 22

 

Pause: Michele Rizzo

REACHING

1–3 October 21

 

Pause: Archivio Conz Collection

Broken Sounds / Remote Music—Prepared Pianos

16–19 January 20

 

Pause: Every Ocean Hughes

Help the Dead

24–25 August 19

 

Pause: Emma Hedditch

+49 30 243459-53

18–19 May 19

 

Pause: Jimmy Robert (After Ian White)

Joie noire

19–20 January 19

 

Pause: Evelyn Taocheng Wang

What is he afraid of?

27–30 September 18

 

Pause: AA Bronson

Garten der Lüste

26–29 April 18

 

Pause: Ericka Beckman

Super-8 Trilogy

18–21 January 18

 

Pause: Margaret Honda

Spectrum Reverse Spectrum

18–20 August 17

 

Pause: Anthony McCall

Line Describing a Cone

27–30 April 17

 

<p>With generous support by Artis.</p>

 

With generous support by Artis.

 

<p>Further support by neugerriemschneider.</p>

 

Further support by neugerriemschneider.

 

 

Part of

 

Pause-series

 

Program

 

Workshop:
27 August 23, 4 pm