Bio:
Dr. Derrick León Washington is a cultural anthropologist, curator, dancer, and former Senior/Regional United Nations Human Rights Fellow 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, curatorial portfolio certificate, and doctorate in socio-cultural anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin. His fieldwork throughout the Americas has translated into numerous exhibitions, workshops, programs/performances, and conference presentations. His curatorial work has been reviewed positively by media outlets such as the New York Times, British Broadcasting Company (BBC), ARTE (Europe), New York Post, UN Web TV, El Especialito, Huffington Post, Le Monde (France), UN Department of Global Communications, UN News, and National Broadcasting Company (NBC).
Currently, he is curating Urban Stomp: Dreams & Defiance on the Dance Floor. The blockbuster, full-floor exhibition and expansive program series at the Museum of the City of New York, will survey over 250 years of social dance cultures created, popularized, and or re-defined in the City. The first museum exhibition to center social dance and first exhibit of its kind at an institution of any size, the exhibition will take audiences on a journey through the history of social dance with over 300 objects that include ephemera, contemporary art installations, monuments, photographs, ball dance cards from the mid-1800s, ball gowns, ceremonial regalia, costumes, sculptures, film, musical instruments, interactive dance map, life-size electronic dance tutorials, and a dance space dedicated to an all-city mashup dance party that is reminiscent of NYC’s iconic dance parties. Over 90 dancers/culture bearers contributed to the 20+ dance tutorials and films for the exhibit’s immersive dance space. Extensive, interactive educational and public programming at the museum and throughout New York City will highlight sections of the exhibition. The exhibit is on view from April 2025 for an extended 10-month showing.
He is the current Berger–Carter–Berger Fellow at the renowned Institute of Jazz Studies. The largest and most comprehensive library and archives of jazz and jazz-related materials in the world, he utilizes the archive’s resources to help support his current exhibitions and projects.
Mr. Washington’s journey of creating unified projects that embody the ethos of defiant joy began with his work on the Will to Adorn exhibition / project at the Smithsonian Center of Folklore and Cultural Heritage. He continued as the former executive director of El Fogon Center for the Arts in New York City. As an Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow at the Museum of the City of New York, he conducted curatorial work on the permanent exhibitions, Activist New York and New York at its Core. Continuing with applied anthropology work in New York City, he is a scholarly advisor for the New-York Historical Society’s upcoming multi-part exhibition, You Should Be Dancing: New York: 1976. Tentatively opening March 2026.
He is the curator of Rhythm & Power: Salsa in New York, a groundbreaking exhibition and expansive, interactive program series on salsa as an artistic social movement presented at the Museum of the City of New York. Strategic partnerships helped programs reach thousands of people at the museum, throughout New York City’s five boroughs, and thousands more through extensive coverage in English and Spanish language media outlets. To date, Rhythm & Power has had the most extensive amount of programming in terms of quantity and variety out of any exhibition or project related to salsa. Building upon his curatorial work, Mr. Washington is the co-editor of the book, Rhythm & Power: Performing Salsa in Puerto Rican and Latino Communities (Centro Publications, 2017). Using research from this book, he was able to curate the cultural/educational components of the New York International Salsa Congress in 2017 and 2018. In collaboration with SummerStage, thousands of New Yorkers were able to enjoy live music and dance with musicians such as Joe Bataan and Andy Montañez. The exhibition inspired the feature-length documentary, Nueva York: A Musical History of Latin New York (2021). Mr. Washington was featured as an expert speaker and worked as a consultant. Featured on the ARTE television network, the documentary broadcast in over 22 nations in Europe. It received a positive review in one of France’s most influential and widely circulated newspapers, Le Monde. In 2023, he shared findings of the book and new research on one of the four national radio stations of Austria, Österreichischer Rundfunk (ORF).
He is the curator and project director of Dreams & Defiance: A World Re-Imagined, an interactive program series taking place at institutions such as 92nd Street Y, New York University 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. In spring 2022, he was the first artist/curator/scholar to illuminate connections between cultures with objects, ephemera, archival film, and performance at the iconic Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York. The filmed version includes a behind-the-scenes journey of known and lesser-known locations in the historic building, curated presentation of artifacts and ephemera shown publicly for the first time in the theater's 100+ year history, the neighborhood of Harlem as a living archive, and performances featuring voice, music, movement, comedy, and fashion.
As an expert of expressive cultures and former senior/regional fellowship recipient from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, he is the director and curator of Urban Stomp: From Swing to Mambo. This is a multinational, collaborative organization of artists-scholars-activists-anthropologists pushing the boundaries of art and curatorial/educational practice. The second phase of this multi-national project, including the creation of a multi-lingual documentary short film that was the basis of an article and evening-length lecture-performance at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in the summer of 2019. The initial funding for this project was made possible by the generous support from the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation and co-sponsors including the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, Abyssinian Baptist Church, Frankie Manning Foundation, Bronx Music Heritage Center, and private donors. Movements Our Mothers Gave Us, Urban Stomp’s teacher instruction project beginning in 2022 and reignited at Rutgers University a year later in 2023, is a curatorial project that includes a teaching artist professional development series, community visual arts projects, oral narratives, and interactive anthropology of dance courses that center multi-generational storytelling. The series has cultivated several community partnerships, including New Jersey Performing Arts Center. The seeds of this project began with a pop-up exhibition and innovative panel of swing dance pioneers at the Museum of the City of New York in 2016.
Dr. Derrick León Washington short curatorial & project film reel
Recently, Mr. Washington had the prestigious honor of curating and presenting new research, exhibition results, choreography, curriculum, expert oral/written statements, and multi-media exhibition at various international institutions including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva (Switzerland), European Court of Human Rights (France), Council of Europe (France), and in conversation with colleagues from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) working in Geneva and Paris. Aspects of his multidisciplinary curriculum and curatorial modalities are taught globally by means of regional United Nations offices and various UN agencies.
Beginning at UN Human Rights (OHCHR) Geneva and promoted to the full-time, "expert" grade position at UN Human Rights (OHCHR-NY) based at UN Headquarters in New York City. He created multidisciplinary content and research for the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights about usage of relevant tangible/intangible cultural heritage that helps advance human rights, UN Sustainable Development Goals, and ways the arts can empower communities. Additionally, he has led and curated several UN projects, including a multi-national arts/human rights webinar series, the development and moderated the final long plenary of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) 10th Anniversary Youth Forum 2021, United Nations International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples (2021), the first United Nations International Day for People of African Descent (2021), ongoing multi-agency United Nations Art Collection project, dynamic UNHQ Visitor Services webisodes, and several UN films, including a short film about the ‘I Still Believe in Our City’ campaign sponsored by UN Human Rights (OHCHR) and the NYC Commission on Human Rights. The ongoing UN arts/human rights webinar series includes international, exhibiting artists from Puerto Rico, Russia, Brazil, U.S.A., Bangladesh, Lebanon, and Afghanistan. His curatorial, artistic, artifact/object, and human rights focused projects at the UN have been featured extensively on UN TV, as well as UN, UN Human Rights, UNHQ Visitor Services, UN News Centre Chinese, UN Global, and UN Permanent Missions’ podcast, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook channels.
With Mr. Washington’s advanced project management skills and innovative curatorial frameworks that help spark social movements, he’s able to organize exhibitions, programs/experiences, and multi-disciplinary projects with local, national, and international organizations such as: United Nations Headquarters, UNESCO, United Nations Human Rights (OHCHR), Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Institute of Jazz Studies, New-York Historical Society, City Park’s SummerStage, National Jazz Museum in Harlem, Museum of the City of New York, Latin Percussion, Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation, Spring/Break Art Fair (NYC), El Museo del Barrio, Nuyorican Poets Cafe, New York International Salsa Congress, Apollo Theater, Amnesty International Youth Activist College, City University of New York, New York University, New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Rutgers University-Paul Robeson Galleries, New York Department of Education, Texas School of the Blind and Visually Impaired, and New York Public Library Main Branch (Stephen A. Schwarzman Building).