Merce Cunningham to roll the dice for Split Sides in Minnesota

Merce Cunningham, who is 85, will roll the dice on stage himself on Saturday night, 23 April, before his company dances Split Sides at St. Ben's, the Benedicta Arts Center of the College of Saint Benedict in St. Joseph, Minnesota. The throw sets the order of everything in the piece, and everything comes in pairs: two 20-minute scores, one by Radiohead and one by the Icelandic band Sigur Rós, two decors, two sets of costumes and two lighting plots. Between them they make 32 possible versions of a 40-minute dance.

Keeping music, decor and dance apart until they meet at the first performance has been Cunningham's method since he founded the company in 1953, and chance has been part of it since the 1960s. One of the decors uses photographs by Robert Heishman, a 19-year-old from Kansas; the photographer Catherine Yass made the other.

In June the company dances Split Sides at all four of its performances at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, part of the Dance at the Music Center season, with tickets at $20 to $55.

Radiohead's half can only be heard in a theatre. The band played their score live just once, at the Brooklyn premiere in October 2003, and every performance since has used a recording, the UK premiere at the Barbican last October included. Jonny Greenwood said early last year that the music would not be released, because it belongs to the dance.

Split Sides at the Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles