Chicago’s Red Clay Dance Company kicks off its 17th season with national performances, new choreography, and a powerful work that centers Black girlhood. Founder Vershawn Sanders-Ward shares her vision of clarity, community and purpose (Photo Provided).
Clarity, movement, purpose and arrival—four words that describe where the venerable Red Clay Dance Company and its Founding Artistic Director and CEO Vershawn Sanders-Ward are at.
The South Side, Chicago-based dance company just announced its 17th season, a testimony to its standing as a community pillar and hub for Black women and girls invested in dance.
Although the company has been around since 2008, fresh excitement abounds as it embarks on a busy summer season.
“What’s resonating with me is just the possibilities—not feeling like there’s a limit to your potential and what you envision for yourself is possible,” Sanders-Ward recently told The Chicago Defender.
Clarity.
In a season where Red Clay is poised to elevate its national profile, it’s intentional about taking the city along for the ride by exposing audiences nationwide to the look, feel and flavor of Chicago dance. That includes seeing artists from the Red Clay village receive that national exposure as well.
This summer, the company will debut performances at prestigious festivals, including Jacob’s Pillow in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts and The Yard on Martha’s Vineyard. It will also present work at the Africatown Culture Festival in Ward’s parents’ hometown in Mobile, Alabama.
This September, Sanders-Ward will premiere new work at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and launch its “Paint the Town Red” fundraiser at its studio on 63rd Street. Red Clay’s esteemed La Femme Dance Festival, a showcase for Black women choreographers from the city, will launch in March.
Movement.
And when this season is all said and done, Sanders-Ward said, “I want to ensure that my community, both inside of Red Clay and those that are part of our village, continue to feel proud and represented by our work.”
Sanders-Ward, a 2025 Chicago Defender Women of Excellence honoree, took some time to chat with us about her ambitious plans for the company, her purpose and why, after 17 years of existence, this feels like a season of arrival.
Season 17: Celebrating Growth
Tacuma Roeback: Season 17 is a major milestone for Red Clay. What excites you the most about this chapter?
Vershawn Sanders-Ward: In this day and age, just making it to another year is exciting. Some organizations, even in our local area, have closed or are sunsetting at the end of the year. Every year has become a huge time of celebration. We just announced that we have three new company members joining us, so I’m excited to continue to center and grow and elevate our touring company. Each year, as we have hired or brought in new dancers, many of them are new to Chicago, so I’m always excited to bring more artists back to this city.
So, bringing those three new dancers in, continuing to support Black women in dance, and young women entering their careers — that’s really exciting to me. Then I would say, in terms of our performances, I’m very excited about being a part of the World Festival at the MCA, the work we’re bringing to that festival and the story that centers Black women and girls.
Freedom Square: Centering Black Girlhood
Turning Points performance by Red Clay Dance Company in Oct 2024 (Photo Credit: MReid Photography).
Roeback: And speaking of work, your new work, “Freedom Square: A Blackgirlhood Altar,” premieres at the MCA in September. Can you tell me what inspired it, and what do you hope audiences will get from it?
Sanders-Ward: I had the opportunity to see an inspirational exhibit by Scheherazade Tillet, one of the co-founders of A Long Walk Home. The work was entitled “Freedom Square: A Blackgirlhood Altar.” First, I was just in awe of the beauty but also the reverence at which the work was looking to center and platform these stories of missing and murdered Black girls and Black women.
I think what touched me most was the interest and openness that the exhibit was exploring as to what this utopia for Black women and girls could look like, right? So, we were really not only envisioning their life and what their potential was, but what sort of place or space we could create for our Black girls and all Black women to be free and have places of joy and play.
So at that exhibit, it was three rooms at the Cultural Center that I had an opportunity to walk through and read about each individual girl, but thinking about their lives and thinking about this idea of creating these sorts of spaces for us and for others to see us in that way—for others to experience our joy and our play. That’s really what I want people to take away from the work.
As always in my work, I want to continue to center the stories and the lived experiences of Black women and Black girls. It’s really important to me that our stories are told, that our stories are also celebrated and centered and that our communities are celebrating us.
Building an Immersive Experience
Roeback: This particular piece has been described as immersive and interdisciplinary. How did you approach blending all those elements: the dance, digital media and the actual environment? Can you talk about that process, and is that still ongoing for you?
Vershawn Sanders-Ward: Yes, the process is still ongoing. We actually have a creative residency at an artist colony called The Yard at Martha’s Vineyard this summer. And so most of the work, in terms of what would be on the stage, will be developed during that residency. But the other elements, I definitely first asked for permission to have the actual physical altar on stage. I just couldn’t envision having the work without people being able to experience just how magnificent the altar is and to see the items that are on the altar.
So, the beginning of the work is really the process of setting the altar. I wanted to make sure that that was an experience the audience had an opportunity to witness and the care and the intentionality between setting the altar. The built part of the work is actually being able to see the altar, the visuals.
[Scheherazade Tillet] is a photographer. So, I wanted to be able to show images of the development of the altar because there are several iterations of it. Some of the visual displays are her photography of the altar in development and some of the girls from A Long Walk Home that helped curate the exhibit.
I want to make sure that their voices and their presence are also felt. And then the other part is I want to make sure that there are Black girls on the stage performing.
We’re partnering with Black Girls Dance to bring some young dancers into the work with the company. So, that was important to me, too: that we actually get to see Black girls in movement.
So, Black Girls Dance is partnering with us to grow the cast, and then the music is being composed by the amazing Jamila Woods from Chicago. So, it was really important to me that the creative team around the work was also Black women.
I’m really looking forward to the work that we’re commissioning her to create as the score for the work.
Purpose: Cherishing Community and Taking Chicago Dance Nationwide
Turning Points performance by Red Clay Dance Company in Oct 2024 (Photo Credit: MReid Photography).
Roeback: Very dope, very dope. What does this national expansion do for Red Clay? What does it mean for you and the city’s dance community in general? And how’s that going?
Sanders-Ward: Even before COVID, coming out of COVID, touring was a challenge. It was reconnecting with presenters or other organizations and other cities that wanted to bring your work to their community. For Red Clay, it has always been very important that we want to see ourselves in the communities and the audiences that come to see our work.
Regardless of where we’re going, we want to make sure Black communities are there. We want to make sure Black women and Black girls are present. So, that’s already a part of the conversation before we can finalize, ‘Will we be able to come, and what is the work we’re going to show?’ That’s very integral to this conversation and engaging with the community.
We want to be intentional about communities that we’re coming into, who is seeing our work and how they’re engaging with the work. So, it feels very humbling but also very exciting. I’m excited to personally be able to share my choreographic work on both of these national platforms.
As always, I’m a Chicagoan, and so anytime we can show the amazing art and dance that comes from the city, I leap at that opportunity. While I love performing here at home for Chicago audiences, I want people to know that amazing dance doesn’t just happen on the coasts, right? It happens, and dancers are trained, and choreographers make work from Chicago that is of national reputation and deserves national and international exposure and light.
Roeback: What part of Chicago are you from originally?
Sanders-Ward: Well, I live in Bronzeville now, but I grew up in the South Suburbs. So, I spent time there in between my grandparents’ home in Alabama, which is why we’re going to perform in the [Africatown Culture Festival] that’s in my parents’ hometown in Mobile, Alabama.
Roeback: Red Clay.
Sanders-Ward: Yes! [Laughs] We are deeply rooted in these Chicago streets.
La Femme Dance Festival: Chicago at the Center
Roeback: Absolutely. I’m down on my last few questions. The La Femme Dance Festival is returning in March. How does it feel to have that festival continue as it uplifts the voices of Black women in dance?
Sanders-Ward: It feels amazing. I’m really excited to be able to center work by Chicago choreographers. We want to keep it really close to home.
So, we have Rena Butler, who, again, is from this city, even though she’s in New York and making work all over the world. She’s very much Chi-town. So, really, really honored that she’s coming to create a new work for the company for that festival.
We’re also going to be featuring South Chicago Dance Theatre, which is directed by Kia Smith. Again, another Chicagoan was a member of Red Clay at one point and then has her own company now. So, it feels good to not only center the stories of Black women but to show again the choreography and the artwork from Chicago. A few years ago, when we were bringing La Femme back after COVID, I remember being asked, ‘Do you still think that there needs to be platforms specifically for Black women choreographers?’ There does need to be. Even in our stories, as diverse as they are, the opportunities are still not as plentiful as I would like to see.
So, I definitely feel like the need for this festival exists. Being in community with one another is even more important to me, like how do we pull up for each other. That feels very resonant for me at this time. So, I’m excited that it is continuing, and I’m excited that the festival continues to show all of our stories as diverse as they are but still come from the perspective of Black women.
An Artist’s Arrival
Roeback: As you evolve and grow, you can have “up” years, “down” years, years where you feel like the art is strong. Maybe there are some years when you don’t feel that way. For you personally, as a choreographer, CEO or “Artivist,” any and all of those roles, how are you feeling now at this point in your artistic journey?
Sanders-Ward: I feel very clear. I feel clear in my purpose. I feel clear in my artistic vision. I know what it is that I want to say, and I’m committed to saying that in any and all spaces that I show up in.
In the past, it may have been youth and being a little naïve and just saying what I thought. Now, I’m probably a little more subtle with it, but it doesn’t diminish my purpose. It doesn’t weaken my position, and it doesn’t weaken my commitment to the communities that I am a part of and value. So, my vision is very clear. It feels like an arrival.
Last season felt like a homecoming. But now, artistically, I’ve arrived at a place where I’m really confident in my work and the vision I have for my work artistically but also for this organization.
I am excited to continue that work but also build the next generation of leadership for Red Clay Dance Company.
To explore Red Clay Dance Company’s performances, community programs, and ways to support, visit redclaydance.com.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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