In the Marron Atrium, choreographer Sarah Michelson turns the museum into a living workspace, inviting visitors to encounter dance not as a fixed performance but as an evolving, everyday practice.
What is dance when it is not confined to a stage? What happens when choreography becomes part of a museum’s daily rhythm, unfolding alongside visitors, conversations, and the ordinary movement of a public space?
These questions animate nowhere, a commissioned performance by choreographer Sarah Michelson at the Museum of Modern Art. Presented in the Donald and Catherine Marron Family Atrium from September 15 through October 11, 2026, the project places Michelson and a rotating cast of dancers within the museum’s everyday environment. Rather than separating performance from public life, nowhere makes the atrium its workspace, stage, and point of departure.
A daily dance, not a single event
Michelson has spent nearly three decades investigating the physical, historical, and intellectual dimensions of dance. Born in Manchester, England, and based in New York, she is known for meticulous choreography and for challenging the conventions through which dance is created, rehearsed, and presented.
At MoMA, nowhere takes the form of a daily dance. Michelson performs alongside a rotating group of dancers, with the work unfolding during regular museum hours. It is on view Saturday through Thursday, while Fridays are designated as an open space for dance makers, arts workers, and other visitors, hosted by Michelson and invited guests. No advance registration is required for the Friday gatherings.
The structure changes the usual relationship between audience and performer. Visitors may encounter the work while moving through the museum, pause to observe, or return to see how the activity has shifted. The performance is not presented as a sealed theatrical event with a single start and finish. It becomes part of the building’s daily life.
The place as the starting point
For Michelson, the architecture in which a work takes place is often central to its development. “The place where the work will happen is pretty much always my starting point,” she has said. She began developing nowhere during a Studio Residency at MoMA in 2024.
The Marron Atrium offers a distinctive setting: a public interior through which museum visitors continually circulate. By working within this space, Michelson places choreography in direct contact with the museum’s architecture and its patterns of movement.
The atrium is not simply a neutral background. Its scale, visibility, and role as a meeting point influence how the performance is encountered. The dancers share the space with people who may not have arrived specifically to see dance, creating an experience in which attention can be spontaneous rather than formally directed.
This approach also brings the process of performance into view. The museum visitor encounters not only movement, but an ongoing artistic practice—one that includes thinking, working, and being present in a shared space.
Reconsidering what counts as dance
Michelson’s work has consistently tested the boundaries of contemporary choreography. Her recent practice has incorporated painting, video projection, and sound, extending dance beyond movement alone. At MoMA, the project’s emphasis on the artist’s daily presence further expands that inquiry.
The title nowhere suggests a place that may be difficult to locate or define. Yet the work is rooted in a very specific location: the museum atrium. Its apparent contradiction is productive. The performance is situated in a recognizable architectural space, but its form is not fixed by the conventional boundaries of a theater or a scheduled show.
By treating the atrium as a daily workspace, Michelson makes the conditions of performance part of the experience. The work exists through the interaction of dancers, space, time, and the people who pass through it.
A museum as a place for live practice
MoMA’s presentation also reflects the Museum’s ongoing engagement with performance as an art form. Live work can challenge the assumption that museums primarily preserve objects and display completed works. A performance is time-based: it happens, changes, and disappears, even when its documentation remains.
nowhere places that temporal quality at the center of the museum visit. The performance is not a supplementary event attached to an exhibition of objects. It is the exhibition’s central activity, integrated into the routine operations of the institution.
The project was developed in part through MoMA’s Studio Residency and acknowledges additional residency support from organizations including the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Danspace Project, Mark Morris Dance Group, Movement Research, and New York City Center.
Organized by Ana Janevski, Curator, and Martha Joseph, Associate Curator, with Sibia Sarangan, Curatorial Assistant, in MoMA’s Department of Media and Performance, the presentation was produced by Kate Scherer and Olivia Rousey.
The audience inside the work
Because nowhere unfolds in a public atrium, visitors are not separated from the performance by the familiar arrangement of a theater. They encounter it within the same environment they use to navigate the museum. That proximity can make the experience feel informal, but it also raises questions about attention: when does watching begin, and what does it mean to witness a work that continues whether or not one is looking?
The Friday gatherings extend this openness by making room for dance makers, arts workers, and visitors to share the atrium. The format positions the museum as a place for exchange as well as presentation, and for artistic activity that does not always resolve into a finished object.
MoMA notes that the performance may include explicit language and amplified sound, a reminder that this is a live work with its own sensory conditions rather than a silent installation.
Dance within the everyday
With nowhere, Michelson asks audiences to reconsider where dance belongs and how it can be experienced. The project does not require visitors to enter a theater, take their seats, and wait for the lights to dim. Instead, it places choreography within the flow of an institution that is already in motion.
The work’s significance lies in this shift of context. Dance becomes a sustained practice within public space—visible, changing, and connected to the ordinary rhythms of the museum. In the Marron Atrium, nowhere is not an absence of place. It is an invitation to see a familiar place differently, through the presence and movement of bodies.
Exhibition details
Sarah Michelson: nowhere
The Museum of Modern Art, Floor 2, Donald and Catherine Marron Family Atrium
September 15–October 11, 2026
Daily dance: Saturday–Thursday during museum hours
Fridays: open space hosted by Michelson and guests
11 West 53rd Street, New York, NY
Performance is free with Museum admission; no advance registration is required for Friday gatherings.
