Dancers Chanelle Turnbull and Rahila Coats, center, rehearse a piece with the Red Clay Dance Company on Monday, March 4, 2024, in Woodlawn. Red Clay Dance Company is celebrating the ending of its 15th anniversary season with a bang by expanding its biennial La Femme Dance Festival from two days to three, said Vershawn Sanders-Ward, the company’s founding artistic director and CEO.
The two world premieres are “Her Womb: Crucified, Conceived, Crescent, Congo… The Gathering” by Dallas-based choreographer Michelle Gibson, and Sanders-Ward’s “Unconditional Conditions.” Vershawn Sanders-Ward, choreographer and artistic director, coaches her dancers during a rehearsal Monday, March 4, 2024, at the Red Clay Dance Company in Woodlawn.
That’s why Sanders-Ward, an Alabama native reared in Chicago’s South suburbs, is so excited about Robinson’s appearance at the festival, which falls during Women’s History Month. “I’ll give them the ability as well to show me something that they are working on … I’ll feel out the room and see what feels right, but a lot of times I like to do a bit of a mock audition,” Robinson said. “I can give them feedback and help them have an experience of what it’s like in my world.”
“In the beginning, people thought that it was just a fad,” she said. “It’s amazing to not only see it taught in every studio and part of a dancer’s vocabulary, but to really be respected. And with platforms like TikTok and YouTube, it’s spreading and ever-evolving. When you see the way young people are moving their bodies, it’s so incredible because of all the training they have access to whereas back in the day, if you weren’t in the clubs, you didn’t know how to dance hip hop.