Our Story: The Birth of Fuse

Fuse Interactive Arts has been growing under the radar for years, telling stories through song and movement in small projects by our founder, Sunita Puleo. Here, she tells our origin story...

Fuse Integrative Arts began as Fuse Music Project. I auditioned 4 professional female performing artists from diverse backgrounds, and asked them to dig deeply into their personal heritages to offer songs that felt like home to them. In a slow rehearsal process, involving lots of tea, sharing YouTube videos from around the world, and uniting in wordless musical expression, we created a safe place for each member to share deeply of themselves. We then joined our unique voices to help one another share our home sounds, and to weave them together in an expression of unity for our audiences. 

In one particular performance, we looked up from our last note and found our audience on their feet, weeping openly. They were broken open by the deep vulnerability and unity they had experienced, and it inspired many of them to continue seeking this type of unity in their own circles. I’ve done years of research and practice to ensure that this type of unity work can be done among all kinds of people--not just professional performing artists. 

The first time I consciously thought about the arts building meaningful bridges between different people, I was a 15-year-old New York City kid singing a jazz solo in a coal town in the Czech Republic in the ‘90s. The local audience, accustomed to stoicism, sat straight and stone-faced through my jazz choir’s songs as we tried to woo them with our sounds. During my short solo in C’est Magnifique, I determined to make this older man in the 8th row smile. I sang my heart out in French, which I’m sure he didn’t understand. I emoted, I moved, and I willed my sounds to break through this cultural barrier that I barely understood. In the middle of the last line, a small smile spread across his face. And right then I was hooked on music as the best form of cross-cultural communication. 

I also found that music can express the deep essence of someone. More than twenty years ago, my sister and I were having a heart to heart about her boyfriend (now husband). “Do you think he and I fit together?” she asked. Exhausted from final music composition projects, my words failed me. After staring at her for a few seconds, I started humming a melody. “This is you,” I said, as I sang a light and quick violin line. “And this is Dan.” I sang a slow and steady cello part. “You’re different, but you sound so good together!” I composed a song using these melody lines for their wedding day, and it serves as a sonic example of how the essence of a person can weave together with the essence of another, despite their differences. 

Seamlessly infusing sound, sight, scent, touch and movement into any presentation magnifies its impact exponentially. I’ve had the privilege of experiencing this impact as the music director for several international conferences in the last 10 years. I recruited musicians from various countries and music traditions and worked to blend their sounds in songs that were also accessible to audience participation. Some people said it couldn’t be done, but we knew it could-- if we listened well to one another and gave freely of ourselves to the group. 

The results were beyond anything the conference organizers expected. An auxiliary aspect of the conference-- the music-- became a memorable pillar that expressed their international theme. One leader in the conference community commented, “I don’t know what you just did to me, but you did it.” He saw and heard his heart for the nations expressed in a deep way, and barely knew what to call it-- but he got it. I’ve since had the opportunity to consult and lead these types of multicultural participatory performances for various smaller gatherings.