The Good News Suite @92NY
Oct 17th @7pm
(featuring NYC Youth Artists)
92NY Harkness Dance Center
Featuring TRPNYC Movement Ensemble: Johnnie Cruise Mercer, Paulina Meneses, Tj Jacobs, Paris Jones, Demestrius Burns
Instrumentalists: Jean Charlot, drums, Young Denzel, Robert McSweeney, horn (Mercies)
Vocal Artists: Alejandro (Arranger), Jaida Foreman, and Nic Pierre (Unforced)
Underscore Design: Justin Johnson
Lighting Design: Zee Hanna
Wardrobe Design: Pierre Rashid
The Good New Suite is a set of choreographies honoring maker Johnnie Cruise Mercer’s upbringing in the Black Baptist church. Inspired by Bible scriptures orally passed down to Mercer from his childhood, and grounded by research on Gospel Music/the black church, the works are each intentionally crafted to guide communities through the grief of today while leading them towards the sensations/tools/the state of letting go.
At the 92NY Mercer will premiere the second working of the suite, a new ensemble work titled The Unforced Rhythms of Grace. Featuring an ensemble of both black movement and vocal artists, the work launches from contemporary gospel music, guiding audiences through complex rhythmic bouts, honest deeply embodied testimonies, and eventually to a chance to attempt a breakthrough. Each night will feature a curated set of guest appearances from the greater NYC black dance community.
Mercer will also share a revamped version of his ever-evolving solo, Mercies of a Butterfly. A dance theater work that recently premiered as a part of Pioneer Go East Collective’s Out Front Festival in January 2026, Mercer is eager to use the work as both a tool to teach, and a way to share a structure created specifically to move in-process.
Mercer states about the solo: I am not dancing to present, I am moving to feel; to seek the same release I first found when I was 8 at church.
The event at the 92NY will be handled & catered sensorially by Love, Naj ,a black owned catering company owned by Mercer’s long time friend Naj Abdullah. The audience will also be given the opportunity to pre/post show to: document a video testimony (on their good news), get photographed in a moment of praise, and then consider “burning” a chosen grievance.
Full Credit Info:
The Unforced Rhythms of Grace will premiere at 92NY in the Fall 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 Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and 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 Queenborough Community College as a Cuny Dance Initiative 2025/2026 Artists in Residence, as well as at the American Dance Festival.
Mercies of a Butterfly will premiere as a 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 Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and 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 Queenborough Community College as a Cuny Dance Initiative 2025/2026 Artists in Residence.
Both works were produced and fiscally sponsored by TheREDprojectNYC.
Photo by Tony Turner