Johnnie Cruise Mercer from Mercies of a Butterfly, photo by Tony Turner.
Tickets
General Ticket: $25
Member Ticket: $20
This program has been generously supported by the SHS Foundation,
in honor of its treasurer, Sara Throne.
Welcome back Johnnie Cruise Mercer! Join us for a moving evening as Mercer presents his one act dance theater work, Mercies of a Butterfly. A movement allegory on “weathering the storm,” the work follows a recently born spirit as they contend with weight, build strength to run, and eventually learn how to fly! With Mercer’s Black movement history at the center of the work’s structure, the dancer/choreographer/director publicly leans into his epic memory in order to share the goodness of letting go.
The solo performance involves close collaboration alongside a creative team of long-time collaborators and peers including music producer Young Denzel, film/video artist Torian Ugworji, horn player Robert McSweeney, drummer Jean Charlot, and fashion designer Pierre Rashad.
This performance has been programmed as part of our Fall Exhibition, Here & There: The First Churchennial. More information can be found by visiting our exhibition page here.
Mercies of a Butterfly will premiere as part of Go east Collective’s OUT FRONT Festival 2026.
The work has been in development for the past two years through the Movement Research Artist-in-Residence Program. The program is funded, in part, by the New York State Legislature, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the Davis/Dauray Family Fund, and the Harkness Foundation for Dance. The work was furthered while in residence at Queensborough Community College as a Cuny Dance Initiative 2025/2026 Artists in Residence. The work is further produced and financially supported by TheREDprojectNYC.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
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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 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 Clarice Performing Arts Center’s The BlackLight Summit, and at The American Dance Festival. 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 currently a NYSCA supported 2024-2026 AIR at Movement Research, a 2024-2026 Pioneers Go East Fellow, and a 2025/2026 Cuny Dance Initiative Artists in Residence at Queenborough Community College.
Learn more about upcoming projects Johnnie’s cooking up with his production company TRPNYC: www.theredprojectnyc.org or at IG@redprojectnyc or him personally on IG@johnniecruisemercer
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Jean-Lemke Charlot II (ARMDQUEST) is a Haitian American visual-performance artist from Queens, New York. Jean was invited into a world of Afro centric culture, playing West African drums, painting and teaching across the Metropolitan Area for several different community organizations for weddings, paint parties, mural projects, portfolio workshops, festivals, recitals etc. He has reached multiple platforms where he has learned, performed and led as a Performing artist under Bambara Drum and Dance Ensemble.
Jean reinvented himself under the name ARMDQUEST: Afro Renaissance Man Developing Quality Under Every Steady Thought. ARMDQUEST became Jean’s identity to build his own platform to mentor young artists.
As the diaspora continues to evolve, Jean will continue to serve his community through the arts, helping push for the evolution of artistic and cultural influence on its children here in America as the Afro Renaissance Man Developing Quality Under Every Steady Thought.
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Justin Johnson (aka Young Denzel) is a music producer and AI engineer creating original scores for artists and TheRedProjectNYC. For over a decade, he’s shaped movement-ready soundscapes—melodic, textural, and built through close collaboration with performers. His practice blends composition with creative technology, using code and immersive environments to sculpt atmosphere and narrative. Trained as an engineer (B.Eng., VCU) with experience at Apple, MassMutual, and as a lead data scientist at Pinger, he brings care, clarity, and dependable craft to every project.
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Robert McSweeney (Rah) is a 1st generation Caribbean American born in Baltimore, MD raised in partly in Brooklyn, NY and Atlanta, GA . He has had many moments of musical expression throughout his time at the Atlanta Youth Wind Symphony, Georgia Music Educators Association All-State and Regional band conferences; and through his time at the local place of worship. He also attended Schwob School of Music at Columbus State University in Columbus Ga as an undergraduate education major. He served the US Army as a musician for 8yrs. During his time in the army band he travelled around the world and performed for hundreds of thousands of people. These performances ranged from military ceremonies to televised NFL halftime shows. He sings and plays several instruments including trombone, clarinet, and the euphonium.
Rah excels as a creative consultant and has a passion for set design with certifications in residential construction. Since the pandemic he’s chosen to liberate himself from the relationship that music was and to nurture new ways of existing around music making especially ones that center the love of his blackness and its roots.
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Torian Ugworji is a dance filmmaker, performance archivist and media educator working in Philadelphia and New York City. After graduating from Virginia Commonwealth University with a B.F.A. in Kinetic Imaging, Torian has combined his passion for movement and video into his creative work. Torian has worked alongside Johnnie Cruise Mercer and theREDprojectNYC as the creative director and youth engagement director for the non-profit Think of Us. He is a Career and Technical Education Teacher at Philadelphia’s High School for Creative and Performing Arts. Torian takes pride in supporting the arts, where he enjoys local dance concerts, jazz venues, indie movie premieres, theater shows, etc. Torian has a range of skill sets, such as design, drawing, photography, arts management, and directing.
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Pierre Wright (Pierre Rashad) attended Virginia Commonwealth University where he majored in fashion design. He is a wardrobe stylist, fashion designer and sewist.