SPARK! giving immersive pop-up performances across OKC
Forget breaking the fourth wall. Hui Cha Poos is basking in the experience of creating art without any barriers between the performers and audience.
“When you’re able to do improvisation — and I mean truly improvisation, because we don’t know what’s going to happen; it’s happening to us at the same time as it is happening to the audience — there is an opportunity to really share with the audience our full selves,” she said.
The founder of RACE Dance Collective, Poos is helping fan the flames of a new Oklahoma City ensemble bringing together dancers, musicians poets and more. Called SPARK!, the interdisciplinary company of local artists debuted in August with its first immersive pop-up performance.
Producing Artistic Director Nicole Poole, an OKC visual and performing artist, founded SPARK! as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. “The Oklahoma Standard exists, and it is strong; we have just been isolated for a very long time. And we hope that we can be a spark that helps bring us together,” Poole said. “The arts help us heal. The arts help us process what we normally can’t process through words. But a lot of people aren’t going to feel comfortable walking into a theater or another performance space. So, how can we go to where people are? How can we
make sure that everybody’s welcome?”
Sparking OKC’s first soundpainting ensemble
SPARK! stands for Spontaneous Popup Acts of Radical Kindness, and the troupe’s mastermind hopes the project also sparks joy, love and connection.
Poole has been experimenting during the pandemic with creative ways to brighten the community, from creating whimsical chalk drawings in Edgemere Park to planning an afternoon of performances for one-person audiences throughout downtown OKC. With SPARK!, Poole has achieved her longtime goal of assembling Oklahoma’s first soundpainting ensemble.
Soundpainting is a compositional sign language for shaping performances in real time. Composer Walter Thompson created the language in 1974 to allow him to communicate wordlessly with a group of musicians and dancers he was leading through an improvisational performance. After devising a few signs on the fly for the concert, he eventually expanded soundpainting into an entire language of signs. “The best way I explain it to people is if ‘Ted Lasso,’ Frank Zappa and ‘The Electric Company’ had a love child. It’s uplifting. It’s unpredictable. It’s dynamic — and you get to see
extraordinary artistry from across the spectrum of Oklahoma City performing arts,” Poole said.
An Oklahoma native who moved back to her home state in 2016 from New York, Poole is a certified soundpainter who has been performing with the Walter Thompson Orchestra for almost 30 years. When she saw RACE Dance give a fall 2020 performance on artist Jen Lewin’s interactive light installation “Aqueous” outside Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center, Poole decided OKC was ready for a soundpainting troupe and contacted the collective about helping her light SPARK! “It’s been so fun,” Poos said. “It’s this kind of approach to performance that’s completely just bizarre and different from what I’m used to. ... Everything is on the spot.”
Showcasing artistic diversity
SPARK! includes about a dozen local artists from wide-ranging backgrounds and skill sets. Along with Poole and Poos, the company features dancers Brandi Kelley, Austin Nieves, Chris “Twix” Shepard; DJ and poet Tony Tee (aka DJ Nymasis); visual artist, poet and dancer Angel Little; husband-and-wife musicians Aaron Michael Bushong on violin and viola and Chelsea Nicole ThompsonBushong on harp; OKC Thunder Drummer Nicholas Klein on percussion; filmmaking brothers Zachary Burns and Jacob Leighton Burns; and dancer and production associate Jessica Ray.
“It’s a goodie grab bag. ... It is hugely, intentionally diverse — and that’s really part of our strength. You get that many voices with that many perspectives,” Poole said.
She received a Thrive Grant from the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition through the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts’ Regional Regranting Program, along with a microgrant through Downtown OKC Initiatives and Urban Land Institute of Oklahoma, to help launch SPARK! “The SPARK! project is activating our city and its public spaces in new and exciting ways. We are thrilled to support this innovative art form in OKC,” said Michelle McBeath, Urban Land Institute manager.
Poole said she also invested her own money in SPARK! and plans to apply for nonprofit status. “All the artists are being paid. ... Because we have had such a long period of no gigs, no teaching, no residencies, that is non-negotiable.”
Inviting audience participation
Oklahoma Contemporary has provided a free rehearsal space for the ensemble, and SPARK! has made 13 of its rehearsals open to the public. The company gave its first pop-up performance Aug. 27 during “Final Fridays on Film Row,” and worked with an audience of at least 200 people at the September Night Market at Scissortail Park. “We got them moving creatively, and then I had them all harmonize, just in an ‘ahh,’ just all just singing together. And that moment hit all of us, we were like, ‘Oh my gosh, we’re a community again,’” Poole said.
SPARK! will next host an thank-you performance for healthcare and essential workers at 6:45 p.m. Oct. 2 at NW Ninth Street and N Walker Avenue, across from SSM Health St. Anthony Hospital and in front of Dusty Gilpin and Tank Ramirez’s “Thank You” mural. The public is invited to wear red like the SPARK! uniforms, bring “thank you” signs and “create an hour of rowdy gratitude.” Local musicians who have portable acoustic instruments can bring them and join the ensemble.