Note: This article is provided by ProfoundTV, who are promoting the event.

Way back in 1966, a group of New York artists, lead by John Cage, joined an eclectic mix of engineers and scientists from Bell Telephone Laboratories to create a series of innovative dance, music and theater performances that they called 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering.

At the heart was Variations VII, the next to last in Cage’s series of indeterminate works that he had begun in 1958, which pioneered use of electronic equipment and systems in music.

The overall creation has gone on to be known as one of the most complicated pieces of music ever put together, a composition that replaces instruments and music with engineering expertise and assorted electronic devices. Of these, expect to find everything from Geiger counters, juicers, sounds from a dog pound to an open telephone link to the newsroom of the New York Times; you can see why it has not oft been repeated.

So, expectations are high for the Japanese debut of Variations VII, performed by a group at the Asahi Artsquare in Asakusa later this month.

Here are the event details. You can find out more at the official event page (Japanese).

Date: 2011/01/29 (19:00) and 2011/01/30 (15:00).

Ticket price: Pre-sale 2,500yen / Door: 2,900yen

(1 drink included)

The video here is a trailer from a movie, documenting the original performance. Not the best, but gives you an idea of what sort of thing to expect.