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Image description: Black/African Diaspora woman with dark brown hair wearing a white blouse, brown top, colorful earrings and gold bangle bracelet. Photo by Raymond Jerome.
she/her/hers
Council of the Three Fires–comprised of the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Nations–as well as the Miami, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Sac, Fox, Kickapoo, and Illinois Nations; Chicago, IL
Vershawn Sanders-Ward holds an MFA in Dance from New York University and is the first recipient of the B.F.A. in Dance from Columbia College Chicago (Gates Millennium Scholar). She is the Founding Artistic Director and C.E.O. of Red Clay Dance Company and is currently a candidate for Dunham Technique Certification. Sanders-Ward is a 2019 Chicago Dancemakers Forum Awardee, a 2019 Harvard Business School Club of Chicago Scholar, a 2017 Dance/USA Leadership Fellow, a 2013 3Arts awardee, and a 2009 Choreography Award from Harlem Stage NYC. In 2015, 2018 and 2020, NewCity Magazine selected Ward as one of the “Players 50, People Who Really Perform for Chicago.”
Her choreography has been presented in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, The Yard at Martha’s Vineyard, as well as internationally in Toronto, Dakar, and Kampala. Vershawn is currently on faculty at Loyola University Chicago in the Fine and Performing Arts Department and has received choreographic commissions from Columbia College Chicago, Northwestern University, Knox College, AS220, and the National Theatre in Uganda. Her upcoming site-specific choreographic project set to premiere June 2023, Rest.Rise.Move.Nourish.Heal was selected for a 2021 National Dance Project Award from NEFA.
As an arts advocate, she serves as a board member of the African American Arts Alliance of Chicago and was selected to attend the inaugural Obama Foundation Summit for Emerging Global Leaders. Sanders-Ward has had the pleasure of gracing the cover of Columbia College Chicago’s Alumni Magazine DEMO, and the Chicago Reader!
For more information about Vershawn Sanders-Ward:
