Dreams and Defiance: Finding Freedom in Social Music & Dance, is an interactive program series and upcoming exhibition that explores the complicated links between social music and dance forms practiced in the Andalusia region of Southern Spain, Africa (Notably North, West and Central Africa) and throughout the Americas. Notably, the project emphasizes the cultural fusion of Muslim, Sephardic, Roma and North African cultures of Andalusia, vast multi-ethnic landscape of Africa and the Americas, and ways temporary celebrations, in the midst of unprecedented violence, influenced, and continues to influence the social music and dance practices of creolized cultures of the Americas. The work addresses the cultural exchange as a complicated, contested, ongoing process negotiated in expressive cultural practices.
This brown bag series speaks to the art, activism and public scholarship integral to the forthcoming innovative program series and exhibition. These informal discussions at the NYU Center of Latin American and Caribbean Studies seek to share innovative new scholarship that blurs the lines between academic and public work.
Centering a multidisciplinary and ethnographic approach, this workshop investigates the circular flows of music cultures of the Atlantic World.
About the speaker:
Frank Ferrer is undoubtedly one of the most important and influential figures of popular music in Puerto Rico of the past five decades. As a musician and producer, he founded the music groups Frank Ferrer y Los Magnificos; Frank Frrer - Puerto Rico 2010; Frank Ferrer - Puerto Rico 2013 and Descarga Boricua.
Frank has been producing music since 1965 with the release of his first recording titled Los Magnificos. He has been working non stop ever since and has been referred to as "Puerto Rico's national producer." At present, Frank is working in both San Juan and New York in the conceptualization of several music projects.
Organized by:
Dr. Derrick León Washington, is a cultural anthropologist, curator and dancer specializing in museum curation, experiential education, and expressive arts of the Americas.
He has an undergraduate degree in cultural anthropology from the University of California at Los Angeles. He completed his master’s degree and doctorate in socio-cultural anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin.
His fieldwork in Brazil, Cuba, Costa Rica, Spain, Mexico City, Washington D.C. and New York City has contributed to numerous exhibitions, performance workshops, and conference papers.
As an Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow at the Museum of the City of New York, he conducted curatorial work on the exhibitions Activist New York and New York at its Core.
He is the curator of Rhythm & Power: Salsa in New York (June 15, 2017-November 26, 2017), a groundbreaking exhibition and expansive, interactive program series on salsa as an artistic social movement at the Museum of the City of New York. He’s the co-editor of the book, Rhythm & Power: Performing Salsa in Puerto Rican and Latino Communities (Centro Publications, 2017).
Dr. Washington is the 2017-18 CLACS Visiting Scholar.
The event is free and open to the public. Photo ID required to enter building.