Johnnie Cruise Mercer, a 2022 Dance Magazine Harkness Promise Award Recipient, and a 2021 Princess Grace Award Recipient (Choreography), is a queer-black think-maker; a choreographer, an educator, and producer based in Brooklyn, New York. A native of Richmond, VA, Johnnie holds a BFA in Dance and Choreography from Virginia Commonwealth University. Johnnie’s choreographic work has been shared by 92NY Harkness Dance Center, Danspace Project Inc, BAAD!, La Mama Experimental Theater, Tariq ‘Meally’s BlackLight Summit, and at The American Dance Festival. Johnnie has had the honor of being a 2019-2021 Artist in Residence at Brooklyn Arts Exchange, a 2020-2021 Ping Chong and Company Creative Fellow, a 2020-2021 AIR through New Dance Alliance’s Black Artists Space to Create Residency, and a 2022 Artist in Residence at Center for Performance Research. Johnnie is currently a NYSCA supported 2024-2026 AIR at Movement Research, and a 2024-2026 Pioneers Go East Fellow.
As an educator, Johnnie specializes in K-12 and pre-collegiate development focusing on history and movement’s uses in building collaborative work/community. Johnnie has facilitated/taught within the New York Public School system through The Leadership Program, and Movement Research’s Dance Maker’s Program. Mercer has also been on teaching faculty/a guest educator at The American Dance Festival, Bates Dance Festival, PRATT Institute, Goucher College, Sarah Lawrence College, The University of Maryland, Harlem School of the Arts, and The Dance Institute of Washington. Johnnie also writes curriculum; being the Co-Creator/Curriculum Writer for both Martha Graham’s Our Own American Document Curriculum, and Queen’s College’s Kupheburg Center for the Arts Jazz and Justice Curriculum. He is currently a professor at NYU Tisch (within their High School Dance Program), the Dance Performance Workshop III Director at Brooklyn Arts Exchange, and a full time IB Theater instructor at Brooklyn Prospect High School.
