The final installment of The Pillow Project's Second Saturday series was supposed to be The Silent One. Mary Miller put her spin on that by doing a series of surprisingly aloof dance vignettes based on sign language with cellist Edouard Shvarts. LABCO stretched it, but stayed within bounds with a strong sneak preview of Ursula Payne's "Under Lock and Key," about the hidden nature of spousal abuse in the home. But juggler Mark simply did his own thing with Cirque-ish choreography, throwing nifty rhythmic routines with clubs, rings and balls.

It was a while into the program before the Pillow's Pearlann Porter got to the meat of her experiment. Actually modern dance audiences had beat her to the punch at Merce Cunningham New York concerts decades ago when, averse to the edgy style of Cunningham's musical partner, composer John Cage, some rebelled by bringing their own headphones and tape recorders.

Porter took it a step further by asking audience members to bring iPods and select their own music to accompany the dances. At one point in a preview of the Pillow's upcoming "Twenty Eighty-Four," the performers had their own iPods, moving to secret music, while audience members listened to something else or, if they chose, to nothing at all.

It opened doors to see how dance sometimes can take a back seat to the music. I enjoyed a search for structure within the random nature of it all. Still, the results were mixed in this laudable experiment because it became harder for the dance to stand on its own.