What’s a better way to engage people–gambling or ballet? Well, who hasn’t seen an audience member fall asleep at the ballet? But has anyone ever seen someone asleep at a poker table?

Gambling is a serious addiction. It draws you in, tempting you with the possibility of something, until it is all that you pay attention to. Even board games for children incorporate the chance element of the dice roll to engage the players (who hasn’t looked pleadingly at the dice in their hands and exclaimed, “Please not a 4, anything but a 4!”?). Chance, the possibility of success or failure, is a decisive element in engaging people. And Cunningham takes full advantage of this phenomenon in his choreography.

Having had the opportunity to dance some of Cunningham’s movement involving chance operations, I’ve come to appreciate chance as a method by which dancers can be engaged more so than in traditionally choreographed works. After several weeks of Cunningham warm-ups, I am now able to participate in some of the easier exercises without really thinking about it–both a sign of my improved familiarity with the technique and my laziness. Even in previous choreography and performance, I’ve found myself performing purely through muscle memory, focusing my mental attention instead on facial expressions and emoting.

When I found myself watching a group from across the stage dancing and having to decide for myself when the proper time to enter the sequence was, I realized that I was more aware of the movement and the rhythm and the timing than I had ever been before. In being subjected to the chance of when I, and others, should enter the movement phrase, I had to possess a deeper connection with not only my motions, but those of everyone around me, as well. I suddenly noticed that one group was on the third set of movement, indicative of an appropriate entry. I heard the sound of feet against the floor, using the bum-bum-ba, bum-bum-ba to gauge timing. All the details of dance were magnified when chance was involved. Dancing on autopilot would be impossible in such situations.

I have always considered chance operations in dance choreography as a cop-out for choreographers whom I thought were simply too lazy to finish their own sequence. After engaging in one of Cunningham’s chance-involved works, though, it seems more like an effective way to engage both the dancers and the audience in a deeper fashion. Dancers cannot blindly go about performing without being aware of their surroundings. The audience will see something different and new every single time. Together, the heightened attentions of both the dancers and audience create a synergy that greatly differs from traditional, set works.