Jenai Cutcher
Tap dancer. Choreographer. Teacher. Journalist. Archivist.

Jenai Cutcher’s creative practice includes dancing, choreographing, teaching, writing, videography, archiving, and researching histories of dance to present in a variety of media. She has performed nationally and internationally with tap dance artists including Brenda Bufalino, Lynn Dally, Michelle Dorrance, Barbara Duffy, John Giffin, Savion Glover, Derick Grant, Katherine Kramer, Max Pollak, and Lynn Schwab and her own choreography has been presented throughout the country. Cutcher has written articles for several publications including Dance magazine and The Village Voice, three dance books for children, and Columbus Moves: A Brief History of Contemporary Dance. Her feature-length documentary, Thinking On Their Feet: Women of the Tap Renaissance, explores the work of women who resurrected and revolutionized the art of American tap dance and continue to pioneer the field. 

Cutcher was the founding Executive and Artistic Director of Chicago Dance History Project, a digital archive of original and collected research. Under her eight years of leadership, she conducted 131 interviews and produced 55 public events featuring 361 prominent individuals in the dance field: artists, educators, collaborators, administrators, advocates, and more. CDHP has acquired 50 collections donated from community members and digitized over 18,000 files including programs, photographs, and footage from the past seven decades. Cutcher now works independently with the performing arts community at large to develop new methodologies and techniques for generating and sustaining archives and audiences. She has recently collaborated with the Auditorium Theatre, Mark Morris Dance Group, the American Folk Art Museum, and Yale University on various archival and research projects. 

Cutcher is the 2019 recipient of Chicago’s esteemed Ruth Page Award. She has a BA in English and MFA in Dance, both from The Ohio State University.