On this episode, our guest Professor Dawson shared with our audience the connection that exists with the Kongo Kingdom and its influence in the Americas.

Bio

A multi-talented artist, Professor Daniel Dawson has worked as a photographer, filmmaker, curator, arts administrator, consultant and scholar. He has served as Curator of Photography, Film and Video at the Studio Museum in Harlem (NYC), Director of Special Projects at the Caribbean Cultural Center (NYC), Program Manager at the American Museum of Natural History and Curatorial Consultant and Director of Education at the Museum for African Art (NYC).

As a photographer, he has shown in over 40 exhibitions. In addition he has curated more than 70 exhibitions including Harlem Heyday: The Photographs of James Van Der Zee and The Sound I Saw: The Jazz Photographs of Roy DeCarava and was formerly a curator with the Jazz at Lincoln Center’s curatorial team. Prof. Dawson has also been associated with many prize- winning films including Head and Heart by James Mannas and Capoeiras of Brazil by Warrington Hudlin. He has worked as a consultant for the Cooper Hewitt Museum, International Center for Photography, Lincoln Center, Ralph Appelbaum Associates and three different divisions of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.

As a scholar, Dawson has lectured at the House of World Cultures-Berlin, the Kit Tropenmuseum-Amsterdam, the University of California-Berkeley, University of Texas-Austin, University of Wisconsin-Madison, New School for Social Research, Stanford University, Columbia University, Princeton University and the Federal University of Bahia and Rio de Janeiro-Brazil.

Dawson has also taught seminars on African Spirituality in the Americas at Columbia University, University of Iowa, New York University and Yale University. He is a currently a curatorial consultant for La Casita, a division of Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors specializing in presenting international oral traditions.

Dawson is presently teaching in the Institute for Research in African American Studies at Columbia University and in the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University.