In the summer of 1948, while in residence at Black Mountain College, John Cage organized a series of concerts of the works of Erik Satie. The series culminated in a production of “The Ruse of Medusa,” Satie’s comic play “Le Piège de Méduse,” translated from the French by M.C. Richards. The play was directed by Helen Livingston and Arthur Penn. Cage played the piano. Various members of the Black Mountain community participated as designers and cast members, including Buckminster Fuller in the role of Baron Medusa, and Cunningham as Jonas, “a costly mechanical monkey.” Cunningham choreographed a series of short intermittent dances for his role, which he later performed as a solo work under the title “Monkey Dances.”