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San Francisco Bay View

June 23, 2003

SF Arts Community Honors African Artist

By Wanda Sabir |

The Alice Arts Center pulsated with African rhythms, a spiritual telegram to Malonga Casquelourd, 55, killed early Father's Day by an alleged drunken driver, 35-year-old Martin Burgermyer of Oakland. The memorial that began at 6 p.m. continued into the wee hours of the night as people paid tribute to a man beyond compare.

Malonga single-handedly did more to promote African dance and, by extension, African unity, than any other person to date, when in 1972 he co-founded Tanawa, the first Central African dance company in the United States. I kept expecting to see him come in from the wings with his legendary smile - like Elegua, just playing.

His son, Kiazi, drummed until perspiration dripped from his shaven head, arms and torso illuminated, as dancers and others nearby sent him healing energy when he became overcome with grief and had to stop.

Greg Hodge, Oakland School Board member, mentioned how everyone knew not just the dances, but the songs associated with the rhythms, in Lingala and Kikongo.

" This ability to sing and dance together, that is, communicate, is just one of the many gifts Malonga leaves behind," Hodge said.

Always ready with a smile, encouraging to the neophytes and the stars, Malonga was easy to talk to and hang with. Kendra Kimbrough says that when she left Fua Dia Congo after a short stint in the company, the director, Casquelourd, encouraged her to follow her dreams. So it was with a heavy heart June 15 that the company performed at Casquelourd's dance home, the Alice Arts Theatre, "The Rarity of Me."

Kendra had been having dreams about Malonga for almost as long as she'd known him, so she could only wonder what Casquelourd's latest incarnation might mean regarding these visitations. All she could say was that they'd be welcome, just as he always was to her in life.

People gave testimony, others performed, while many just sat, stood or danced along the sides of Studio 2, where drummers called Casquelourd's spirit home. Everyone was there - dancers, drummers from as far back as Casquelourd's sojourn in the states. Edsel Matthews, Koncepts Cultural Gallery director, checked himself out of Fairmount Hospital to attend. Recuperating from a stroke that left him partially paralyzed, Edsel said that he was expected to make a complete recovery.

Tarika Lewis, who played violin that evening, said the driver suspected of killing Casquelourd was not held. He didn't even have to show up for the hearing on June 17. After waiting for the case to be called, a court clerk noticed Casquelourd's friends and family and asked them whom they were waiting to be called. It was then that she gave them the news. The driver, Martin Burgermyer, who is White, walked away from the accident without a scar. His vehicle, a Toyota 4Runner, which was traveling the wrong way in front of 1 Lakeside Dr., had airbags, reports said. Casquelourd, however, in a 1972 Mercedes-Benz sedan, didn't have a chance of surviving the head-on collision.

" It's amazing," Lewis said that evening, as she stood in the street talking while drummers and dancers took their energy to the streets, the Alice Center closed.

" He's not going anywhere," Lewis said the clerk told her and her friends, as if that were a great consolation prize. Vehicular manslaughter plus inebriated driver equals a lot of time behind bars, right? No, not if you have a good attorney. Martin Burgermyer has not been charged because the "blood tests aren't in yet, and after 48 hours they have to release him," officials said.

Lewis said that when Casquelourd came to the Bay Area and began teaching dance at Everybody's Creative Art Center, for many African Americans it was the first time they'd been in the company of brothers and sisters from the continent.

" You have to remember," the former Black Panther said, "African countries were just becoming liberated in the '60s and '70s."

Casquelourd's children, two sons and two daughters, Kiazi and Boueta, and Muisi and Lungusu, represented their father well that evening, and again Saturday and Sunday at the Ethnic Dance Festival's 25th Anniversary Season honoring the dance masters. Casquelourd is definitely one of them.

This story comes special to the NNPA from the San Francisco Bay View.