The collaboration of choreographer/dancer Merce Cunningham and musician John Cage resulted in a redefinition of dance and music during the era in which they lived. Cunningham and Cage started out by separating the music from the dance, working on the choreography and the musical composition separately to promote both a freedom and an interdependence between them ("About Merce"). Then they began to use what they termed "chance operations," which originated from their use of the I Ching for determining the basic elements of a piece (McMullen). Cage noted that his idea for chance methods came from his study of Zen Buddhism, and that although he originally tossed the coins to determine chance elements, he subsequently obtained printouts instead and viewed them as "fresh air or clear waters" ("Chance Conversations: An Interview with Merce Cunningham and John Cage"). Cage's music thus took on a somewhat disjointed sound in places, radically different from what people were accustomed to hearing. In an appearance on the What's My Line TV show in the 1950s, host Garry Moore preceded Cage's performance of his piece "Water Walk," a composition that involved using a variety of kitchen implements and other objects as musical instruments, with the warning, "These are nice people, but some of them are going to laugh," to which Cage replied affably, "I prefer laughter to tears" ("John Cage Water Walk").
Cunningham and Cage's work transformed the paired disciplines of dance and music on a larger scale than their own work occupied. Their work essentially translated the postmodern philosophy into the arts, divorcing the latter from their traditional meanings and interpretations and taking them outside the box. Their chance operations changed the arts from being an expression of the artist's ego to being what might be termed a scientifically randomized juxtaposition of elements. Unlike compositions of the p
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