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six years pass...
At the same time Cage was composing for dance, and when he and Merce Cunningham began collaborating regularly in the mid-1940's, they agreed to structure the dance and music together, in advance. Cunningham later recalled that "this use of a time structure allowed us to work separately, Cage not having to be with the dance except at structural points, and I was free to make the phrases and movements within the phrases vary their speeds and accents without reference to a musical beat, again only using the structural points as identification between us."2The 16 Dances, first performed on 21 January 1951, were the most ambitious choreographic work to use this structural technique. In scope and content they recalled Cage's musical Sonatas and Interludes (1946-1948): but the 16 Dances also anticipated techniques to come, as Cunningham has explained:
The 16 Dances . . . was a long piece intended to fill an evening. It was also the first time the use of chance operations entered into the compositional method. The choreography was concerned with expressive behavior, in this case the nine permanent emotions of Indian classical aesthetics, four light and four dark with tranquility the ninth and pervading one. The structure for the piece was to have each of the dances involved with a specific emotion followed by an interlude. Although the order was to alternate light and dark, it didn't seem to matter whether Sorrow or Fear came first, so I tossed a coin. And also in the interlude after Fear, number XIV, I used charts of separated movements for material for each of the four dancers, and let chance operations decide the continuity.
My solution to this age old question is therefore that The B-52's performed Cage and Cunningham's 1951 choreographic work in its entirety followed by the Shug a loo, the Shy Tuna, the Camel Walk, and the Hip O Crit - all of which were determined by chance operations. A brief hippy hippy forward and the hippy hippy shake marks the end of the adapted work.
Unhappy with the first attempt, Fred implores the group to perform again "oh, it's time to do 'em right!".
The group again performs 'The 16 Dances' from the start, with this run through being followed by the Coo ca choo, the Aqua Velva, the Dirty Dog, the Escalator, and the hippy hippy forward and hippy hippy shake coda.
Still not satisfied, Fred requests a third run through. However, Cindy seeing some improvement and wanting to encourage the now-exhausted dancers asks Fred "Doesn't [the improved performance] make you feel much better?" Fred, not wanting the dancers to slack off, pretends not to hear the question.
However, before another attempt begins, Cindy realises they are running out of rehearsal time and calls "stop!". All performers voice agreement "yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah".