La MaMa and The Jewish Museum to Welcome Noa Eshkol Chamber Dance Group, 3/7 & 10

In March, audiences will have a rare opportunity to see two live, New York debut performances of late Israeli dance composer, theorist, and textile artist Noa Eshkol's work. Four dancers from The Noa Eshkol Chamber Dance Group-ranging from their 30s to early 70s-will be coming from Israel to New York City for these special dance events: Mor Bashan, Noga Goral, Racheli Nul-Kahana, and Ruti Sela.

The first performance, on Thursday, March 7 at 7:30 pm, is part of the 2nd annual Contemporary Israeli Dance Week presented by La Mama at the Ellen Stewart Theatre, 66 East 4th Street, Second Floor, Manhattan. Tickets are $25/$20 Students & Seniors. Information is available at 212.475.7710 or www.lamama.org.

The second performance, on Sunday, March 10 at 2pm, is presented by The Jewish Museum at 545 West 22nd Street, Manhattan, in partnership with Dia Art Foundation and in conjunction with the current exhibition Sharon Lockhart | Noa Eshkol at The Jewish Museum. In the exhibition, Los Angeles-based artist Sharon Lockhart engages Noa Eshkol's practice, presenting a selection of Eshkol's scores, drawings and wall carpets alongside her own five-channel film installation and photographic work. Lockhart will create a unique architectural intervention for this dance performance in New York, bringing Eshkol's work into the context of contemporary art. Tickets for the March 10 performance are $10. Tickets and information are available at 212.423.3337 or www.TheJewishMuseum.org.

The Contemporary Israeli Dance Week, curated by Michal Gamily and Hila Gamily-Kaplan, and presented by La MaMa from March 7 to 10, 2013, celebrates and shares unique qualities of contemporary Israeli dance. The Festival consists of five Israeli companies with dancers and choreographers ranging in age from 20 to 70 years. A 22-minute film, Private l's trailer, directed by Oren Shkedi and choreographed by Dana Ruttenberg will also be shown. A complete schedule for the week of performances of Renana Raz, Noa-Zuk, Gil C. Harush, Dana Katz, and The Noa Eshkol Chamber Dance Group is available at www.lamama.org.

Racheli Nul-Kahana is a 1963 graduate of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance who has been a senior dancer in the Group since the 1960s. She presently teaches movement and movement notation in the Movement and Dance Department of Seminar HaKibbutzim College of Education. Ruti Sela has been a senior dancer in the Group since the 1970s, performing in Israel and abroad. Mor Bashan and Noga Goral, both graduates of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, joined the Group in 2008.

Since the 1990s, artist Sharon Lockhart has used film and photography to engage the everyday life of a wide range of communities. It was during a research trip to Israel in 2008 that Lockhart first encountered the work of dance composer Noa Eshkol (1924-2007). In the 1950s, together with architect Avraham Wachman, Eshkol developed a wholly original movement notation system known as the Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation (EWMN) which describes virtually every perceptible movement of the body. The notation system uses symbols and numbers to express the spatial relationships between parts of the body and to define the motion of any limb around its joint. This is also the basis for Eshkol's dance practice. Eshkol devoted her life to perfecting the system, which has been applied across a broad range of research fields. Because she preferred to work in relative isolation and without concern for public acclaim, Eshkol's work in modern dance is little known outside of Israel. Drawn to the parallels between Eshkol's theories and her own lines of interest - including stasis and motion in still and moving images, postmodern dance and Minimalism - Lockhart began working with the dancers who are active members of the Noa Eshkol Foundation for Movement Notation in Holon, Israel, an organization dedicated to preserving Eshkol's legacy. Lockhart filmed Eshkol's longtime students and a newer generation of dancers performing her dance compositions in an effort to bring to light her visionary work.

La MaMa is a remarkable arts institution with a worldwide reputation for producing cutting-edge work in theater, dance, performance art, and music. Founded in 1961 by theater pioneer and legend, Ellen Stewart, La MaMa has produced and presented more than 3,000 theatrical productions to date and is a vital part of the fabric of cultural life in New York City and around the world.

Widely admired for its exhibitions and collections that inspire people of all backgrounds, The Jewish Museum is one of the world's preeminent institutions devoted to exploring art and Jewish culture from ancient to contemporary. Located at Fifth Avenue and 92nd Street, The Jewish Museum organizes a diverse schedule of internationally acclaimed and award-winning temporary exhibitions as well as dynamic and engaging programs for families, adults, and school groups.

Detail: Installation view of Sharon Lockhart | Noa Eshkol exhibition at The Jewish Museum, NYC, showing Racheli Nul-Kahana and Ruti Sela performing Noa Eshkol's Fugue. Courtesy of Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels; Blum & Poe, Los Angeles; and neugerriemschneider, Berlin. Photo by Alex Slade.