Ray Mercer

Ray Mercer, a native of Omaha, NE, has choreographed works from Ailey II, The Ailey School, PHILADANCO!, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, New Jersey Ballet, Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Ballet Pensacola, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, and for Dancers Responding to AIDS (DRA). He has performed with Deeply Rooted Dance Theater, as a guest artist with Boston Ballet, and in the Broadway production of The Lion King. Mercer has received many awards including a Joffrey Ballet Choreographers of Color Award and a Pensacola Ballet Choreographers Award. He is a five-time winner of Broadway’s Gypsy of the Year Award for best onstage performance. Acknowledged for his choreography in The New York Times, Chicago Sun Times, and Movement Magazine, Mercer’s work Hamdan: Through the Gates of Tears was commissioned and archived by the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC.