Noa Eshkol (1924, Palestine – 2007, Israel) was an artist, choreographer, dancer and professor. In the 1950s, together with architect Avraham Wachman, Eshkol developed a system of movement notation (Eshkol Wachman Movement Notation – EWMN) which uses a combination of symbols and numbers to note down the movements of the body and organize them into categories which can then be studied and repeated. Eshkol developed various choreographies with the help of the EWMN system, in which, without depending on the music or the costume, dance becomes a process of interaction between bodies in space and a communitarian activity. EWMN thus transcended the field of dance and can be a tool for observing the relationship between any body and its surroundings, and can be applied in various fields, including studies of language and of behavior.

In 1973, during the Yom Kippur war, Eshkol stopped dancing and began creating vibrant textile woks which she continued for more than three decades. Her keen eye for composition moved fluidly between the disciplines of dance and visual art. The “wall carpets,” as Eshkol referred to them, are intended for versatile display, either horizontally on the floor or vertically against the wall. They consist solely of found fabric, fragments Eshkol collected from friends, sewing workshops and other sources. Never cutting or otherwise manipulating a single piece, Eshkol used larger swaths such as military blankets or bedspreads as her base, creating vivid assemblages of color and form that her dancers sewed into place using a signature cross-stitch. Ranging from nature to folktales, geometry, portraiture, still lives, interiors or even abstraction, Eshkol’s motifs resonate strongly with art history, at times explicitly referencing Modernist painters or other contextual inspiration.