The Harvest: Grounding Rest. Rise. Move. Nourish. Heal Through Land and Labor
The Harvest marks a pivotal moment in the creation of Rest. Rise. Move. Nourish. Heal., a site-responsive dance ritual created by Founder and Artistic Director Vershawn Sanders-Ward in collaboration with Company members and creative partners avery r. young, Jovan Landry, Kelley KFLEYE Moseley, and Evelyn Danner.
This work is developed in relationship to ART ON THE FARM in Grant Park, a living urban farm space stewarded and visually designed by Erika Allen and the Urban Growers Collective. The land serves not only as a site, but as an active collaborator in the work’s evolution.
Sanders-Ward envisions Rest. Rise. Move. Nourish. Heal. as “a practice, a process, an uncovering of the beautiful labor of bringing us all home to land, reclaiming ancestral cultural traditions, technologies, and tools that can lead to individual and collective healing.” The Harvest embodies this vision through embodied labor, communal presence, and reciprocal relationship with the land.
As Company members and community participants engage directly in the harvest, the act becomes both ritual and remembrance — an opportunity to reconnect with ancestral knowledge, natural rhythms, and shared responsibility to land and each other.
Harvest Season Photo Album
Company Reflections
“Harvesting has been like recovering a memory long forgotten. Strange yet familiar, a sense of joy is felt as I labor to remember a truth that has always been.”
— Chaniece Holmes
“The harvesting process thus far has been revealing, telling, fruitful… assuring. It has been a pleasure and a gift to experience the labor, the land, and those involved in such a rich way.”
— Marceia L. Scruggs
“Helping with the harvest grounded and reconnected me with the natural rhythm of my environment. I still feel peace resonating within me from that experience and am looking forward to getting more dirt under my fingernails in the future.”
— Leana Allen
“It was a beautiful sight to see a sea of Black and brown bodies harvesting the fruits of labor done by Black and brown hands. I will never forget the sense memory of my childhood that arose from touching the soil, uprooting weeds, and picking fresh vegetables on the South Side of the city.”
— Kenesha Reed
“This season working with Urban Growers Collective and the South Chicago farm has been transformative for me. I never realized how much power lives inside of our physical, cultural, and spiritual connections to land and food as a way to survive. I am deeply grateful to have learned new processes of manifestation and ancestral technologies that activate energy and access communication.”
— Destine Young
“When harvesting together with the Red Clay community and the Urban Growers Collective, I felt fulfilled and an immense appreciation for nature and humanity. I realized I would like to work with this land and these people that surround me every day.”
— Keisha Janae
