Medford dance company to perform in Philadelphia

By Sean Patrick Murphy

A Medford-based dance company will make its premiere at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival this fall.

Under the direction of Kim O’Connor-Sparks, the KAOS Dance Company will perform “In due time…” on September 16 and 17 at the CEC, 3500 Lancaster Avenue, Philadelphia.

O’Connor-Sparks said she got her start in dance at a young age. She had been asked to be in a talent show in grammar school and a friend taught her a tap dance.

“I picked it up quickly and just fell in love with it,” she said.

O’Connor-Sparks then went to see WAVES V Dance Company in Philadelphia and thought, “I want to do that!

“I was very inspired,” she said and signed up that next year at the age of 12 at a dancing school in Haddonfield “and have never stopped.”

In 1993, O’Connor-Sparks had graduated from Rowan College of New Jersey (formerly Glassboro State College) with a degree in Speech/Theater/Dance, specializing in dance.

She found a help wanted ad in a local paper for a dance teacher and responded to it which lead her to Today’s Dance Center. In 2001, after eight years of teaching and assisting with the company, the director approached O’Connor-Sparks to purchase the studio from her since she was looking to retire and move to Arizona.

“After long debate, I had decided to go for it,” she said.

KAOS, which are her initials (Kimberly Ann O’Connor Sparks), was started in 2010, after she had felt the need for further artistic outlet, reaching a more diverse audience.

“A need to get back to what I love to do,” O’Connor-Sparks said. “Direct concert work with professional dancers.”

She said she looks forward to getting KAOS involved with professional international events as it evolves. Performing at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe is one of her plans as well as touring thru European countries.

“I love being able to challenge both sides of my brain with running the business yet creating new works every year as well as working with my staff and the students and families that attend the school,” O’Connor-Sparks said. “My favorite part is watching a little girl blossom into a beautifully, well-trained young lady with poise, discipline, and work ethic.”

She has also studied psychotherapy and because of that feels she works from a more cerebral approach attempting to create works that intend to reach an audience that otherwise would not be interested in dance.

“My choreographic process also has a more eclectic approach creating floor patterns, mapping out the work, before ever even thinking of the actual steps,” O’Connor-Sparks said. “Overall, I do not allow the ego to take over the work attempting to create a calm and natural evolution of the work.”

And who inspires her?

“My top two mentors would be Melanie Stewart and the late Michael Lanning,” O’Connor-Sparks said. “However, I presently feel my greatest influence in dance is my quest for keeping the traditional training of technique and discipline in art of dance.”

Tickets for the September performances can be purchased at the Fringe Box Office 215–413–1318 or online at www.livearts-fringe.org