Photo: Julieta Cervantes. Courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art and Maia Chao
being moved
Concept & Direction: Maia Chao
Choreography & Assistant Direction: Lena Engelstein
Performed by & Devised with: James Barrett, Kristine Bendul, Deja Rion, David Guzman, Anna Kohler, Ellen Maddow, Cory Seals, Nancy Slusser, Jo Warren, Paul Zimet
Appearances by: Hannah Mitchell and Parker Sera
Sound Design and Composition: Ryan Gamblin
Synth Music & Sound Collage: Nina Ryser
Lyrics & Vocal Composition: Maia Chao
Costume Design: Lily O’Neill
Producer & Stage Manager: Aoife Delaney
Creative Consulting Producer: Emma Orme
“Presented as part of the 2026 Whitney Biennial, this performance explores the theatricality and choreography of a museum visit in the galleries of the Whitney Museum's permanent collection exhibition, “Untitled” (America). Centering the visitor’s experience, BEING MOVED locates its subject not in the artworks themselves, but in the social rules, scripts, and patterns that condition our encounters with art. Tracing the gap between the fantasy of a profound encounter and the ambivalent realities of contemporary spectatorship, the work plays with the ordinary and minor dramas of a museum visit.”
The music and sound for Being Moved was a three-part collaboration. Maia Chao wrote song lyrics and melodies while providing oversight and direction as the lead artist of the project. Nina Ryser contributed synth compositions, sound collages, and initial sonic concepts and ideas, but was unable to be in the rehearsal room. As the sound designer and composer in the room, I worked with Chao’s direction, concepts, and songs alongside Ryser’s building blocks, creating, revising, and recording arrangements, bringing in new sonic and musical content, and designing a reinforcement system for the 7th floor of the Whitney Museum.
Photo: Julieta Cervantes. Courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art and Maia Chao
Photo: Julieta Cervantes. Courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art and Maia Chao
Maia Chao wrote the melody and lyrics for this song, after which I wrote and recorded the accompaniment, drawing timbral inspiration from Ryser’s synth work while incorporating field recordings from the museum – footsteps, radio chatter, doors unlocking and opening, etc – to create a percussive backbeat.
Similarly, Chao wrote the melody, harmony, lyrics, and initial underscore (the electric piano heard at the beginning of the track) for Who Could I Be? (Lullaby), before asking me to further develop the accompaniment, which resulted in the above. In the performance, it plays through the galleries as the cast sings “I want to touch it / What if I touched it? / Would it touch me? Who could I be?”
Like a Mirage began as a sound collage created by Nina Ryser, composed entirely of the voiceover recording from a Whitney Museum audio guide. While working in the room with Chao, choreographer Lena Engelstein, and the cast, we discovered a desire for expansion beyond the vocal timbre, and I created an evolving beat – starting with kick and snare, adding in some of Ryser’s compositions (the synth you hear fade in around 1:22), and eventually adding in some of my own synth composition, more percussion, and more rhythmic vocal chops.
Photo: Julieta Cervantes. Courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art and Maia Chao
Photo: Julieta Cervantes. Courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art and Maia Chao
Photo: Julieta Cervantes. Courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art and Maia Chao