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. In 2021, Johnnie was nominated for two Bessies Awards in Dance and Performance: Outstanding Breakout Choreographer, and Outstanding Production or AShadowPrince. (a collaboratively created media-choreography crafted in response to the murder of George Floyd in 2020). As an educator, Johnnie facilitates within the New York Public School system through The Leadership Program, Movement Research’s Dance Maker’s Program, and through Ping Chong and Company’s Secret Histories Educational Program. Mercer has also been on teaching faculty/a guest educator at The American Dance Festival, Bates Dance Festival, PRATT Institute, NYU Tisch, Gibney, University of Massachusetts Amherst, DeSales University, Muhlenberg College, The University of Texas at Austin, Goucher College, Sarah Lawrence College, The University of Maryland, Harlem School of the Arts, and The Dance Institute of Washington. Johnnie’s choreographic work has been seen and/or shared by 92Y Harkness Dance Center, The Dixon Place, Danspace Project Inc, The Fusebox Festival, BAAD!, Abrons Arts Center, La Mama Experimental Theater, The NADA Conference, The Clarice Performing Arts Center’s The BlackLight Summit, and most recently at The 2022 American Dance Festival (premiering a co-choreographed duet with season mentor/friend Stephen Petronio). Most recently, 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 the founding producer, and director of TheREDprojectNYC (TRPNYC), a multidisciplinary ensemble of artists dedicated to movement philosophy, and its use towards building communal spaces for black/other process, documentation, and investigation. In the past six years Johnnie has led, and curated numerous community events; including TRPNYC’s Communion (a salon/mixer providing space for black artists to share, and make in community), Revival (an annual youth-centered concert in partnership with various educational and artistic institutions), Baptism (a process orientated ritual curated specifically for black/brown artists in transformation) and RVA Homecoming, an annual weekend of community gatherings for Richmond,VA native/based makers. An artist dedicated to movement history, he is currently shepherding (alongside longtime film-collaborator Torian Ugorji) the development of a movement-theater documentary work titled, “The Decade from Hell…”! The first of two DocuEpicWorks within his project; “A Process Anthology: The Decade from Hell and the Decade that Followed Suite” ,Johnnie prepares a team of BIPOC Milleninals and Gen Zers for a three night journey grounded in acknowledging/letting go of nostalgia. The journey through “The Decade from Hell…” will be taken on June 15th-17th, 2023 presented by/shared on location at Gibney.
