The Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation 50 and I believe it's going to be used more and more in the study of movement and dance. It will become a natural way of illustrating points one wants to make about movement. You will find it in books dealing with dance and movement; not just books on notation systems. As we begin to collect a larger body of material on movement, then all kinds of studies will be made from this literature. The notation, rather than being a special subject in itself as we often find it today, will be the means of communicating and comparing information about movement. That will be exciting. THE ESHKOL-WACHMAN MOVEMENT NOTATION With the increasing availability of film, videotape, and other technical recording devices, why is a script notation system necessary? A recording device, however sophisticated, can do no more than what it is designed to do: preserve the phenomenon in some form, and reproduce it when required. It cannot perform any analytical function, and we cannot learn anything about the nature of the subject recorded. A building is virtually a record of the architect's work, but we can only learn how it was built, by consulting the architect's plans. Music can be preserved today by astonishingly faithful recordings; but a musical work can be learned and fully understood only from a notated score. Will you tell us briefly something of the history and development of your system? Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation was first given to the public in the book Movement Notation, published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1958. The proposition was set forth that by using this method it would be possible to write any movement of the human body. This ambitious claim had a simple and firm theoretical basis; 145' Breaststroke. Classical Style Breaststroke, Modwn Style Hand Arm Hand I. Forearm Upper Arm Head Upper Body ' Breathe In " Breathe out.
nevertheless the claim required further testing in practice. The validity of the method was therefore put to the test in two ways: I. It was applied to various known disciplines and styles in which movement plays an important role. Every encounter with a new discipline provided a new opportunity of testing the validity and universality of the method, and also stimulated further refinement and sophistication of it. The confrontation of the product of the intellect with the reality of "natural" styles has been effected (and continues); it has shown the intellectual proposition to have been valid. All of the scores so far published have been results of this confrontation. 2. The method had to be taught; if this proved impossible, there would have been no point in the existence of the method. Students had to be persuaded of the need for a notation of movement; they had to be shown that a notation should be capable of dealing with all movement of the human body-not only that part of its possibilities enshrined in a particular style of movement; and, of course, that this method of notation was indeed able to fill the need. This could only be achieved by objective demonstration in practical work. The book Moving Writing Reading is a result of this teaching. It contains small studies composed by the students in the course of their studies in movement, chosen to exemplify various concepts and usages in movement notation. Exercises could have been invented especially for the purpose of a textbook and reader of EW Movement Notation, but in this way the tendencies of a single author are reduced, and it may be claimed that the work represented does reflect the thought processes of students learning movement and movement notation. It is intended as the first of a series of such textbooks, from which the method can be learned. Will you give a brief, non-technical review of the system? What are its fundamental assumptions and approaches? How accurate is it? It is possible to write in the notation every visually discernible movement ~f the human body. It can be as accurate as the observer's eye and the subject's ability-both of structure and of training. The following is a list of the graphic symbols used in Eshkol- Wachman Movement Notation. The numerals: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Arbitrary signs-letters: f L M m P R T -other symbols A total of 30 symbols, including the numerals. The manuscript page itself is also in a sense a symbol, the horizontal and vertical divisions standing for the members of the body and the division of time respectively. The numerals are indispensable; they are used as the universally accepted symbols for expressing quantitative data, which (in the case of Movement Notation) are the units of angular measurement which make ~ossible the quantification of the character of any movement path in space. They are here distinguished from arbitrary signs; al-
The Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation though it is true that the written numbers themselves (i.e., their shapes) are arbitrary, together they form a group of signs, used here in the way in which it is used all over the world and in every field. where auantitative values are involved. All oi the others are arbitrary signs. Most of them can be found in other sign systems. As in other systems, their meanings in the particular context must be explained afresh; they stand for the concepts of Movement Notation and the fact that these were chosen rather than others is incidental. They are all chosen for mnemonic ease. The symbols are chosen with a view to physical ease of writing. The intention is always to avoid symbols which must be drawn and to select symbols which can be freely written-even, within the limits of legibility, scribbled-without their meaning being impaired by any chance deviations from a rigid standard. For this reason, and because the notation is a living system, some of the symbols have been changed in the light of experience. Several groups may be distinguished among the arbitrary signs: I. Letters of the alphabet. Each of these is the initial letter of the key word (in English) of a concept of Movement Notation-for example the letter R, standing for "Reverse." Any other language could have been used, but, of the two languages with which we were familiar, English is the more widespread; Hebrew letters would have presented a superfluous unfamiliarity for many potential users of Movement Notation. 2. Symbols employed in other sign systems, used here with similar meanings: for example, brackets of various kinds-parentheses, square brackets, braces-which qualify the meanings of the symbols included by them; or bows and repeat signs, borrowed from musical notation. 3. Symbols used in new meanings: the most familiar of these is the arrow, encountered in many contexts and with many meanings. In Movement Notation, the arrow stands for a defined concept which has to be learned and accepted. The full meaning of each symbol derives from its placing and orientation on the manuscript page and from its combination and juxtaposition with other symbols in various configurations: that is, from its context within aggregates of other symbols of Movement Notation and the alphabet of written "natural" language. The concept of key signature is frequently used. A key signature precedes a score and provides an overall specification which applies to the whole work, giving information about its content, nature, or structure. In most instances, the use of a key signature results in economy of writing. What do you see to be the basic strengths of the Eshkol-Wachman system in comparison to the others in use? Its accuracy and simplicity, of course. It is a movement notation, and is not based upon stylistic or aesthetic presuppositions, which
limit a priori the range of possibilities encompassed; it is a system constructed on the basis of the structure of the human body. Because of this, it is also applicable to other mammalians (for the purpose of animal behavior studies); this would not be the case with any other system I know of. It is in any case difficult to compare with other systems in use: what other systems are really in practical everyday use in various fields? Does the system take into account movement qualities as well as movement quantities? Qualities are by the nature of things predominantly subjective impressions. The whole point of a notation is to convert impressions (qualities) into entities which can be agreed about by everyone-that is, measurable quantities. Thus, to the extent that qualities are definable they are already expressed as functions in words (as is done in music: expressivo, agitato, dolce). If the qualities are not definable, then what is it that we are talking about? If anything at all, then perhaps something for which poetry is the proper vehicle. Is your system universally applicable to all forms of movement? In what ways may the system be used? As stated previously and in the booklet Movement Notation Survey 2973, the system is constructed on the basis of the human body. Because of this it is applicable to other mammalians. More work involving the notation of animal movement is in progress. In addition, the application of Movement Notation to the visual arts was developed and explained by John G. Harres in Shapes of Movement, published by the Movement Notation Society, Holon, Israel. 1969. In the field of the visual arts, a need is found for notation when variation, temporal order, movement, and precisely defined shape are introduced. Movement Notation is used in this work in order to exvress the generation, movement and decay of forms in space, and stages in the course of these processes. It then serves as a record of the exploration of sometimes complex phenomena which permits the control of many variables, and the comparison of the manipulation of these with the visual effect. It is also a language-both a tool for thought for the individual worker, and a means of communication between workers in related fields: for example, in coordinating design and dance or design and music. It is also the means for the provision of a score in the sense of a set of directives for "performance," that is, the execution of graphics and animated films, whether by hand or by mechanical or electronic means. In work of this kind, the emphasis is shifted from the artifact to the notation: the cornpisition resides in the score, independently of particular manifestations (performances) of it, and more permanently. The main differences between this application of Movement Nota-
The Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation tion and its use with the human body are: the practicability of a higher degree of resolution (with tolerances as low as a single degree); the possibility of inventing linkages of generating lines-in contrast to the unalterable nature of the structure of the human body; the possibility of showing only chosen parts of these linkages; and, most fundamentally, since this is the basis of the applicatiori to graphic and kinetic work, the possibility of making visible the traces swept out by the moving elements and of maintaining them or eliminating them at will. What questions about Eshkol-Wachman do you find most difficult to answer? Is there anything in terms of movement you find especially difficult to deal with when using the system? There are no questions specifically about EW Movement Notation which I find difficult to answer. Of your own questions here, I find the question concerning the need for agreement to adopt a single system the most difficult, because of the speculative philosophical considerations which it entails. Regarding the second part of the question: metric linear measurements are impossible in Movement Notation. Although this is not really within the terms of movement, it is perhaps worth mentioning that sporting achievements (as distinct from movements) would therefore probably require the use of a different system of recording. So far as I know, this deficiency-if it is that-is one which is common to all systems of movement or dance notation so far attempted. Where is the Eshkol-Wachman system taught? Please cite a few places where it is in use. In Israel, it is taught at Seminar Hakibbutzim Teachers' Training College, Tel-Aviv; at the University of Tel-Aviv Fine Arts Department; at the Jerusalem Academy of Music, Dance Department; and at a number of kibbutzim; also on occasion through individual tuition by members of the Movement Notation Society. In the United States, it is taught at the University of Illinois in courses for students of Physical Education and Dance, by Professor Annelis S. Hoyman of the Department of Physical Education. Hopefully, it will soon be one of the subjects offered in the PLAT0 computer-based teaching system, which has 250 terminals, at Illinois and at points as far as the east and west coasts of the U.S. The notation system is in use in Israel by the Centre for Movement Notation at the University of Tel-Aviv, and the Movement Notation Society. My own dances, performed by the Chamber Dance Group, are of course composed and recorded in Movement Notation. Dr. Ilan Golani used the notation in his research work on the behavior of jackals in Israel, and is continuing to use it in behavior studies on the Tasmanian Devil at the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C. My colleague Abraham Wachman is presently completing work on a computer program in the investigation of simultaneous movement of adjacent limbs, at the Haifa
Technical Institute-a continuation of research begun at the University of Illinois. In the absence of systematic follow-up, it is hard to say to what extent it is in use by all those students who have learned the method in Israel and the U.S. or through the textbooks. How much training does one need to become competent in the use of the system? The chief problem in learning Movement Notation lies in the movement rather than in the notation. People do not often know much about moving, and usually still less about observing movement; the time which it takes before a person becomes proficient in the notation therefore depends very largely upon how much time has to be devoted to mastering the very subject which he hopes to be able to notate! At the University of Illinois I was able to teach members of the staff of the Department of Physical Education the basic principles of the system in ten lessons. On the other hand, when (as at a number of kibbutzim in Israel) children begin to learn the notation at the age of 10 as part of an education in movement, the study naturally extends over a much longer period. Again, although an architect can learn the principles within an hour or so, this will not make him able to observe movement; while a zoologist who wants to study means of movement observation as well as merely recording, will require longer. The possible learning situations are so numerous, that there is no single answer to this question. Perhaps the clearest recent example I can cite is that of the students at my own school of movement, who had four sessions per week of movement study (based, of course, upon the notation), and two sessions per week of Movement Notation as a separate subject. Out of 25 students, I5 were fully competent in the use of the system at the end of the &year course. Do you feel there is a need for agreement to adopt a single notation system or are there advantages in continuing to use several different systems? It might be ideal to have a single system of notation today, but as we have not, we can only agree that it would be ideal. Possibly there are advantages in a variety of systems, but this is difficult to establish. Consider the. case of musical notation: the western notation is not applicable to eastern styles of music, nor to Arab music. The fact that such styles developed without any reference to the western notation may account for the diversity of musical styles in the world. Whether a similar diversitv of dance stvles can be exvected to result from the absence of a universal movement notation is open to question. EW Movement Notation is universally applicable inasmuch as it translates the elements of movement into auantities exvressed as numbers. In this use of number lies the power of the system. It is
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