Red Clay Dance members (from left) Marceia Scruggs, Chaniece Holmes, Vershawn Sanders-Ward, Destine Young, and Sara Ziglar rehearse in their Fuller Park space. (Photo: Phil Dembinski)

The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago hosts the premiere of EKILI MUNDA | What Lies Within, a work created through an international collaboration between Chicago’s Red Clay Dance, an all-female ensemble founded and led by Dance Center alum and faculty member Vershawn Sanders-Ward ’02, and the Keiga Dance Company from Kampala, Uganda. Created as part of the TransAtlantic Project, a year-long cultural exchange between Red Clay and Keiga, the work will be performed at the Dance Center November 8 through 10. As reported previously in this blog, the collaboration was supported by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation‘s International Connections Fund, which was initiated in 2008 to enable Chicago arts organizations to launch new partnerships and creative projects with cultural organizations in other countries. The MacArthur Foundation’s mission is to support creative people, effective institutions, and influential networks building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world.

Vershawn Sanders-Ward

Destine Young

Sara Ziglar

Marceia Scruggs

Vershawn Sanders-Ward, founder and executive artistic director of Red Clay Dance, is a graduate of the Dance Center of Columbia College’s BFA Program in Dance. She also holds an MFA in Dance from New York University. The Red Clay Dance ensemble includes Columbia College alums Destine Young ’13, Sara Ziglar ’10, and Marceia Scruggs ’17, all graduates of the Dance Center’s BA Program in Dance.

Performances of EKILI MUNDA | What Lies Within take place Thursday through Saturday, November 8 through 10, at 7:30 PM at the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, 1306 S. Michigan, in Chicago’s South Loop. For tickets, click here.