Cage’s randomness ideas directly seeded early performance art

Evidence

Grooms explained his methodology: “I pretty much improvised it before we went on stage. If we had a rehearsal, it was one day before. And then it was likely playing backyard football. You make the play up right on the spot, saying this is what we are going to do.” Kaprow’s piece was more formal. For two years, he had sat in on John Cage’s New School classes on musical composition, applying Cage’s ideas regarding randomness and the ordinary with brief pieces that, in addition to sound, involved activities and images. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 63

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s broader claim that avant-gardes are produced by conditions, not genius — here a specific pedagogical lineage (Cage’s New School classes) is the transmission mechanism, like apprenticeship structures in other scenes.