Cherry Smash by Marjorie Strider was presented at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York on the 23rd and 24th of March, 1971. The spectators occupied temporary seats or sat on cushions on the floor at one side of a large display room; they faced the performance as they would have done in a proscenium theatre.

Close to the gallery wall at the rear of the performance space stood a white paper wall 40 feet wide. Seven feet high, the wall was seen to be divided by frame lines into eight rectangular segments.

Eight performers, wearing the simple, white belted “uniform” of karate, aligned themselves facing the audience at equal intervals in front of the segmented paper wall; two others, dressed in the same way, stood at the ends of the wall. These performers came from the S. Henry Cho Karate Center. On the harsh, shouted commands of their leader, the eight advanced toward the spectators, performing a sequence of karate blows and kicks in unison.