LA FEMME DANCE FESTIVAL
La Femme Dance Festival is a 3-day biennial celebration of women in dance that brings choreographic works created by women of the Black/African Diaspora to Chicago audiences.
The 2024 festival kicks off with a VIP Opening Reception on Thursday, March 14 at 6 p.m. at the Arts Club of Chicago featuring a fireside chat with legendary Emmy-nominated choreographer and dancer Fatima Robinson, a luminary in the realms of hip-hop and popular music choreography. Ms. Robinson will also lead a transformative masterclass and Q& A for professional dancers at Red Clay Dance Company’s Center for Excellence on Friday, March 15 at 12 p.m. The festival closes with captivating performances at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance on Saturday, March 16 at 7:30 p.m. including two world premieres.
The Saturday evening performances include a Chicago premiere of Portraits in Red by Paris-based choreographer Wanjiru Kamuyu. Red Clay Dance Company will present two world premieres, Unconditional Conditions by its’ Founder and Artistic Director Vershawn Sanders -Ward and the HER WOMB: Crucified, Conceived, Crescent, Congo......The Gathering by guest Choreographer and New Orleans native, Michelle Gibson, performed to a live original score by Grammy-Award winning Composer, Adonis Rose.
SPECIAL GUEST ARTIST
Fatima Robinson
Photo Credit Stephan Schacher
As the New York Times notes, three-time Emmy®-nominee Fatima Robinson is “one of the most sought-after hip-hop and popular music choreographers in the world.” Her latest project is the critically acclaimed Warner Bros. musical The Color Purple, directed by Blitz Bazawule, adapted from Alice Walker’s pivotal novel of the same name.
Recent projects for Fatima include Director of Choreography for Beyonce's Renaissance World Tour, and the 2022 Superbowl. She was nominated for an Emmy® award for producing the highly regarded 2022 Grammy Awards, as well as the 2021 Grammy®Awards, along with choreography nominations for each. She has also choreographed films such as the critically acclaimed Dreamgirls, Coming 2 America, The Harder They Fall, American Gangster, Public Enemies, Ali, Confessions of a Shopaholic, Space Jam 2.
THE CHOREOGRAPHERS
Vershawn Sanders-Ward
Photo credit Raymond Jerome
Vershawn Sanders-Ward is the Founding Artistic Director and CEO of Red Clay Dance Company and is currently a candidate for Dunham Technique Certification. She holds an MFA in Dance from New York University and is the first recipient of BFA in Dance from Columbia College Chicago (Gates Millennium Scholar.). Sanders-Ward is a 2022 Dance/USA Artist Fellow, 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” and in 2023 was inducted in the NewCity’s “Hall of Fame”.
Wanjiru Kamuyu
Photo credit Mathieu Waddell
Wanjiru Kamuyu, native Kenyan based in Paris, France, is associate artist with Theater L’Onde (Vélizy, France) and a Live Feed artist with New York Live Arts (USA). Her career began with its genesis in New York City. As a performer she has worked with Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Bill T. Jones, Molissa Fenley, Anita Gonzales, Okwui Okpokwasili, Nathan Trice, Dean Moss, Tania Isaac…and in Europe with choreographers Robyn Orlin, Emmanuel Eggermont, Nathalie Pubellier, Irène Tassembedo, Bartabas, Stefanie Batten Bland, director/writer Françoise Dô, visual artist Jean-Paul Goude and TV director Christian Faure. Alongside Kamuyu has performed in industrials, television and Broadway musicals, The Lion King (Paris) and FELA ! (UK and Equity European and US tours).
Michelle N. Gibson
Photo credit Tyana Danae
A symbol of rhythmic eloquence and cultural immersion, Michelle N. Gibson is a consummate storyteller, employing body and mind to build a bridge between the culture and academia, but most importantly, humanity. Gibson intricately intertwines Black African American dance traditions, choreography, and associated scholarship linking the vibrant heritage of New Orleans through the Caribbean to the vast expanses of Africa, evoking the social, political, economic, and spiritual understandings central to building bonds within and across cultures. This journey steeped in both tradition and innovation, encapsulates Gibson’s unwavering commitment to heal the world through the culture.
