Polyrhythms Demonstration (Image by Ruth K Burke)

Through walking, our rhythms influence the tangible and immaterial qualities of a space. Bodies respond to an environment—it’s architecture or geography, the living creatures—and over time our movement adds to the chorus of a space’s distinct pulse. The act of walking is both exaggerated and flattened by the circle. Through its form, the circle invites us to commune with the cyclic nature of existence through meditative contemplation, relieved of linear structure. When the circle is a specified track without end, it allows for improvisation within its repetitive nature, opening possibilities of synchronicity, response, refusal, and a distorted perception of time.

The circle is also a training tool in working with livestock. With horses, it is a track on which two bodies navigate space as they communicate through minute shifts of weight, pressure, movement, and praise. The circle is the site of these constantly shifting relationships between humans and domesticated equine.

In this durational walking performance, artist Ruth Burke and her equine collaborator, Fuerst Rendition, generate an interspecies polyrhythmic choreography within the industrial-residential Cudell neighborhood of H-Space Gallery.

www.ruthkburke.com