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Palo
Alto Daily News, Redwood City Daily News, Burlingame Daily News, San Mateo
Daily News, June 19, 2003
African cultural legend Malonga Casquelourd was busy drumming during a performance
at Stanford's black graduation on Saturday. Less than 24 hours later,
Casquelourd was killed in a head-on car crash in the East Bay.
Casquelourd, a former Stanford teacher who founded the Fua Dia Congo troupe,
was 55. Members of the troupe hail from both sides of the San Francisco
Bay.
"This is a major blow to the dance community," said East Palo Alto
dancer Yahsmeen AbduSami, 24. "Malonga was a wonderful person and was always
giving to people."
A memorial will take place tonight from 5 to 10 p.m. at the Alice Arts Center,
1428 Alice St. in downtown Oakland, where Fua Dia Congo practiced.
Fua Dia Congo, which includes Casquelourd's children, will go ahead as scheduled
and perform Saturday at the Ethnic Dance Festival at San Francisco's Palace
of Fine Arts. "It's what Casquelourd would have wanted," AbduSami
said, "since he was about educating the public on African dancing,
drumming and culture," not making a profit.
Casquelourd was returning home from his niece's Logan High School graduation
celebration in the Union City area early Sunday when he was hit by a suspected
drunken driver going the wrong way on a one-way street, Oakland police
said.
He had been drumming at Stanford Memorial Church just hours earlier during
the annual Black Graduation, Stanford officials said. Casquelourd's son,
Kiazi, is a Stanford student.
Casquelourd
taught at Stanford in the late 1970s and had been teaching at San Francisco
State University since 1977.
Casquelourd grew up in Congo and was a principal dancer in
the National Congolese Dance Company from 1965 to 1968. A
year later, Casquelourd moved to Paris and worked with Le
Ballet Diaboua.
In 1972, Casquelourd moved to the United States and co-founded Tanawa, the
country?s first Central African dance company, in New York. Four years
later, Casquelourd moved to the Peninsula to teach at Stanford.
He founded Fua Dia Congo in 1977. Ma Boukaka, a Menlo Park drummer, helped
Casquelourd create the troupe. Boukaka continues to drum every Tuesday
at 7:45 p.m. at Peninsula School in Menlo Park.
AbduSami met Casquelourd's daughter while at Menlo-Atherton High School, and
she asked her to join her father's dance troupe. That was eight years ago.
"It was a pleasure to dance with Malonga," she said. "He
was a professional dancer."
Casquelourd is survived by his wife, Cynthia Phillips; daughters, Muisi-Kongo
Malonga of East Palo Alto and Lungusu Malonga; and sons, Kiazi Malonga
and Boueta Mbongo Malonga.
Christine
Lias, Palo Alto Daily News, June 19, 2003
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