Chicago Sun-Times: La Femme Dance Festival celebrates black choreographers in ‘dancestry’ program

By Catey Sullivan

14 March 2019

About five years ago, Red Clay Dance Company founder Vershawn Sanders-Ward realized she was repeating herself. “I started noticing that I kept having the same conversation with my peers. That the same issue kept coming up: There was a lack of support for our work. A lack of opportunities for marginalized voices. And by our work and marginalized voices I specifically mean black women,” Sanders-Ward said, during a recent chat.

With Red Clay’s 3rd Biennial La Femme Dance Festival, Sanders-Ward gives those voices opportunities to blossom. Running March 14 – 16 in Washington Park’s Green Line Performing Arts Center, Femme Fest spotlights the creations of five female choreographers of Black/African or Diaspora/African descent. By honoring African “dancestry” (dance plus history plus ancestors), Red Clay amps up its commitment to spotlighting dances that began in the myriad nations of the African continent, spread across the planet via the slave trade and evolved through generations to influence everyone from the Brooklyn-based Urban Bush Women to Chicago’s Hiplets to superstar ballerina Misty Copeland.

Read the full article in the Chicago Sun-Times.