In 1983, Paula Franklin, a black woman at Brown, felt the need for more student choreography on campus. That year, she choreographed a piece for the annual Fall Dance Concert, called “Portrait of a Studio.” This piece was the precursor to Fusion Dance Company. In the Spring semester of the same academic year, auditions were held to form a diverse company of 23 students. Over the past 42 years, Fusion has strived to uphold this tradition of a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic group of dancers who perform a variety of styles and do not conform to modern-day constraints on body shape, size, dance style, or choreography.