AMERICAN IDLE IN TIMES SQUARE
A Live Performance Bringing Public Space into Focus
Directed by Maia Chao
Choreographed by Lena Engelstein
Presented by WORTHLESSSTUDIOS and Times Square Arts
Live Performances, 7pm and 9pm, August 14, 2026
August 14 at 7pm and 9pm, Times Square Arts and WORTHLESSSTUDIOS are partnering to restage American Idle by Maia Chao. American Idle is an hour-long live performance in Duffy Square first performed in 2025, conceived and directed by Chao and choreographed by Lena Engelstein.
Drawing from close observations of pedestrian movement alongside the looping gestures of crowd-simulation software used to predict and regulate human behavior in public space, the performers inhabit familiar archetypes—the lost tourist, the tired parent, the kissing couple—while pairs of identically dressed doubles repeat, mirror, and glitch one another’s actions.
Blurring the boundaries between spectator and participant, choreography and everyday life, the performance examines how Times Square’s hypervisibility encourages conformity and continual performance for an ever-present audience of cameras and screens.
“I became interested not only in Times Square as an image, but in the performances and infrastructural systems that allow it to be made and maintained as a powerful and coherent symbol.”
“The more time I spent there, the more I found myself learning about the processes through which certain things become visible while others disappear. I didn’t begin with an idea for a performance, a video, or a photography project. I followed the research wherever it led, and the forms emerged from the systems themselves.”
—Maia Chao
ABOUT MAIA CHAO
Maia Chao is an artist making anthropological work across performance, video, sculpture, and public practice. She has been commissioned by the Whitney Museum of American Art, Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, Times Square Arts, The Shed, and MoMA Education. Additional projects have been presented at the RISD Museum, Bronx Museum, Mural Arts Philadelphia, Boston Center for the Arts, Smack Mellon, and Oregon Contemporary. She has completed fellowships and residencies at the Fine Arts Work Center, Pioneer Works, and Queer|Art, among others. Named a Pew Fellow in 2022, she attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2023. For the 2026 Whitney Biennial, Chao presented BEING MOVED, a new performance commission. She is currently a 2026 United States Artists Fellow. She is full-time faculty in Interdisciplinary Sculpture at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore and resides in Philadelphia.