Red Clay Dance Company Celebrates 14 Years

Red Clay Dance Company, located at 808 E. 63rd St., was founded by Vershawn Sanders Ward. The dance company is in its 14th year. PHOTO PROVIDED BY DIONNE WILLIAMS.
Red Clay Dance Company, located at 808 E. 63rd St., was founded by Vershawn Sanders Ward. The dance company is in its 14th year. PHOTO PROVIDED BY DIONNE WILLIAMS.

 Red Clay Dance Company Celebrates 14 Years

By Tia Carol Jones
Vershawn Sanders-Ward considers herself an artivist, fusing art and activism to be visible as a Black woman and an artist so that other Black young people can see her as an example.

She believes the arts are the gateway to humanity. It’s the way people express themselves and connect to one another. For her, dance is a very visceral and spiritual experience.

Dance is something she has always loved doing. In thinking about her legacy and how she wanted her art to live, she wanted to ensure it was rooted in Chicago. So, she founded Red Clay Dance Company, which is celebrating it 14th season this year.

Sanders-Ward grew up in Chicago and attended Columbia College Chicago and the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Sanders-Ward loved Chicago artists and feels like the city has some of the best artists in the world. She is always thrilled when she gets the opportunity to represent Chicago with her art.

She created Red Clay Dance Company because she knew there was a space for her art, dance and activism. “This city has a rich history and background in activism and definitely in artists, like Gwendolyn Brooks, there are so many artists who have come from this city,” she said. “Culturally, we as Black people, dance is just a part of how we move through the world. Even though, I feel we dance in, over and through adversity, challenges and joyous times. It’s something that is tied to myself, personally, but I think also my community and my culture. It’s definitely a way we express, and we connect to one another.”

Seeing Alvin Ailey as a young person helped her realize that dance could be a career, as well as something she loved. Seeing those artists on stage, she decided she could be a choreographer, and she could make the artwork that was relevant to her community and her lived experience.  Dance Amplifies the rich culture that Black people bring to this country.

She sees herself and the dancers in Red Clay Dance Company as storytellers and truth tellers. She believes that embodying the culture and making the culture visible to the world is a form of activism, ensuring that the stories of Black people are told on their own terms.  Black people are telling those stories, encapsulating the fullness of Black people’s lives.

She believes that it is important that dance and the art are used to show the new innovations and new ways Black people are continuing to rise up and rise above challenges. She wants to use dance as a vehicle to galvanize people to shift and change the narrative and do something about those challenges.

During her time at Columbia College Chicago, Sanders Ward had the opportunity to train more in traditional African dance and other African Diasporic dance forms, like tap, Hip Hop and Capoeira.
“This is the root of all dance for me.  I believe, you can’t consider yourself a dancer if you are without knowledge in those areas. The first thing for me is platforming those forms and making sure they’re seen equally as any other cultural dance forms. That our forms are just as important and foundational,” she said.

Sanders-Ward wants to see more Black and African American people in the arts industry, behind the scenes, from lighting to set design. She wants people to know the culture that she is trying to bring to the stage because they have a shared, lived experience. It is important to her that the Red Clay Dance Company’s productions resemble the culture they are trying to platform.

Sanders-Ward said the village has really rallied around the Red Clay Dance Company and have ensured they had the necessary resources to support the artists, and the young artists. They are looking forward to the future.

“Dance is community. We use the term village. Our dancers, our parents, our students, our supporters, they’re a village to me and they are the type of community I want to be around and the community I envision as a thriving community. You need art and culture,” she said.

Red Clay Dance Company is located 808 E. 63rd St. For more information about Red Clay Dance Company, visit redclaydance.com. You can follow them at @Redclaydance on Instragram, Facebook and Twitter.

Latest Stories

Latest Podcast

STARR Community Services International, Inc.