We sat. I wondered why we were sitting. And why we weren’t in the Biennial galleries given that this performance was part of that group show. Also, there was the immediate question of a dirty coffee cup crushed on the floor in front of paintings by Jasper Johns and Georgia O’Keefe, pulling focus.

Soon enough there were some answers, but the nagging why of it all never went away. 

The cup was soon picked up by a performer dressed as an uptight conservator, stomping into view in clacking heels; she picked it up with gloves as if it were dreaded dog excrement. Other performers, playing the roles of museum visitors, wandered in and we watched them look at the art or rather we watched them glance at it, distracted by other things going on: random sounds like a cow mooing, relentless phone pings, sneezes, loud talking, incessant photo snaps, and a garrulous group of ladies exiting the elevator that mirrored my recent experience. 

The choreography by Lena Engelstein consisted of rounds of catching gestures as the multigenerational cast fidgeted employing a vocabulary of scratches, dropping and picking up brochures, tying shoes, tilting heads, and picking wedgies. There were some bigger moves—hinges to the floor, spontaneous fainting catches, handstands, drops to the splits—by the younger dancers in the cast, the best of which was some wiggling full body articulations by James Barrett as he proceeded to over explain all the art to an unsuspecting visitor. Barrett made us laugh with his physicalized blow hard behaviors and it stood out as a highlight when most of the other bits merely garnered a half smile or an awkward hmph.

Chao also has text scores on the wall on the Biennial floor reminiscent of 1960s instruction art. In “Scores for the Museum Visitor,” a black rectangle is taped on the wall next to a series of directions, including one that encourages you to put your face inside it. Another score asks you to watch the other museum goers as they peruse the gallery. These works seem innocuous and derivative to me, but experienced in light of the staged performance, it was infinitely more fun to watch random people on a Friday morning put their nose to the wall and giggle than it was to watch some of these extraordinary movers—some of whom I have seen take dance phrases and movement scores to revelatory end (in particular I am thinking of the time Cory Seal’s draped his sweaty body across mine in the whirlwind conclusion of Faye Driscoll’s “Weathering”)—pantomime silly cliches and sing songs about being worn out from looking at art. 

In the latter half of the work an attempt was made to address the Whitney’s cancellation of a performance in 2025 by the museum’s independent study fellows about Palestinian grief. It came in the guise of a museum tour (I think mine was in German?). The performer as tour guide began explaining the scandal and ensuing protest only to be interrupted by the performers playing security. I appreciated the footnote, smartly buried in language barriers, as the Whitney’s board contains members that have ties to defense contractors embroiled in the war on Gaza. This moment, and a brief aside between Seals and Deja Rion about being “the only Black people here,” were the few nods into deeper questions than should we or shouldn’t we touch the art.