Always in Translation : A walking dialogue

Abstract

In 2015 writer Mary Paterson invited performance-maker Rajni Shah to lead her on a two-hour walk. They talked about repetition as an internal and integral structuring device in Rajni's trilogy of works, Mr Quiver (2004-6), Dinner with America (2006-8), and Glorious (2009-13), using the meandering form of walking and conversation to think through the circular, incremental and bodily processes within the performance work. The text published here is transcript of that conversation; it has been edited and rearranged as a type of memory and a form of translation. As such, the text draws on both Rajni's and Mary's artistic practices to explore the themes of rhythm, seriality and attention, and on the artists’ relationship and history of collaboration, as well as their individual relationship to the physical practices of meditation, walking, and long distance running.