Founded in Brooklyn, NY in July 2008 and now based in Chicago, IL, Red Clay Dance Company is the brainchild of Vershawn Sanders-Ward, the institutions’ Founding Artistic Director & CEO. They are Chicago’s premier Afro-contemporary dance company, voted Best Dance Organization by the Chicago Reader in 2019 and Best Dance Company in 2020 by the African American Arts Alliance of Chicago. The company is a versatile and dynamic ensemble of Dance Artivist that tours and performs locally, nationally and internationally. Over its’ 15-year history, the company has performed in venues like Grant Park, Pritzker Pavilion / Millennium Park, Dance Center of Columbia College, the DuSable Museum Roundhouse, the Museum of Contemporary Art, ODC Theater, Dance Mission Theater, The Painted Bride, Joyce Soho, and the National Theater of Uganda. It’s Founder, Vershawn Sanders-Ward holds an MFA in Dance from New York University and received awards from Dance/USA, Chicago Dancemakers Forum, Harvard Business School Club of Chicago, and Harlem Stage NYC. Her site-responsive choreographic project, Rest. Rise. Move. Nourish. Heal, is deeply rooted in her identity as a Black/African Diaspora woman and the responsibility to be a vessel through which my culture is amplified and evolves.