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Oakland
Tribune, June 17, 2003
Friends
remember dancer Malonga Casquelourd's life
Malonga
Casquelourd's personality was so big, his energy so bright, he could fill
the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco even without performing the Congolese
dance and drumming he was known for around the globe, say his admirers.
" He had so much to say and so much to present and so much to do on stage,
there were times when we could not get Malonga off the stage," said Lily
Kharrazi, San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival director.
Casquelourd, whose renowned Fua Dia Congo dance troupe is scheduled to perform
at the festival this weekend, died early Sunday morning. He was hit head-on
by a suspected drunk driver who was driving the wrong way on a one-way
street, police said.
His death brought quiet to the Alice Arts Center cafe, where chatter is usually
lively and music abounds.
" The community is in shock," harpist and Alice Arts resident Destiny
Muhammad said. She knew Casquelourd, who directs his dance troupe Congo at the
center, for about seven years and worked with him on a few productions.
When he wasn't holding class at San Francisco State University or leading his
troupe through a new dance, he spent some mornings outside the center with
his friend Tacuma King as King stretched skin over drums or played a tune
or two.
Casquelourd was known to talk loudly and kindly, often switching from English
to French to his native Congolese dialect.
Casquelourd, 55, was widely known as one of the first Congolese dancers to
bring the art to the United States. Those who knew him through the San
Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival said he defined the way people in the Bay
Area and the world looked at African Dance.
Casquelourd grew up in central Congo, according to a biography on a Web site
run by the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies at the University
of California, Berkeley. He was a child protege at Community Fetes, a Congolese
center where youngsters learn the traditions of Congolese Society.
He was a principal dancer of the National Congolese Dance Company from 1965
to 1968 and toured Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America with them.
By 1969 Casquelourd was a resident choreographer and performer with Le Balle
Diaboua in Paris, France. By 1972, he moved to the United States and foundedTanawa,
the first central African dance company in the United States.
He founded Fua Dia Congo as company director, choreographer, and principal
performer, in 1977. He won the Isadora Duncan Dance Award in 1988 for sustained
achievement in dance and was one of the first people named for the Ruth
Beckford Award for Extraordinary People in the Field Of Dance.
Throughout his career in the United States, he has also taught dance and African
culture at several colleges including New York College, New York University,
Stanford University and San Francisco State.
His colleagues at San Francisco State, where he taught in the Department of
Black Studies and dance since 1977, said students and people all over the
world lost an ambassador of African culture and history.
" He has tremendously contributed to enhancing many SFSU students' and San
Francisco Bay Area residents' awareness of the interconnections of song, dance,
drumming, rituals, community and the culture and life of people of Africa and
the African diaspora," San Francisco State African Area Studies program
director Aguibou Yansane said.
C.K. Ladzekpo, director of the African Music Program at UC Berkeley, considered
Casquelourd to be his best friend.
" I wasn't prepared to lose my best friend now," Ladzekpo said.
Casquelourd's main interest in life, Ladzekpo said, was to bring a positive
image of Africa and the African people to those who might not know much
about the history and culture of his home country. Ladzekpo said Casquelourd
believed the more people knew about each other's background, the quicker
peace would come to the world.
" He was a man of the people and everything he has done is to promote peace
in the world by telling the African story as strong as he could," he said.
Casquelourd was developing the Fua Dia Congo piece "Maliki Matanga: Congo
of Yesterday and Today" and planned to have his group perform its second
act this weekend at the San Francisco dance festival.
His daughter Muisi-Kongo Malonga, a dancer with the Fua Dia Congo troupe, said
the family is planning a drumming event to honor his death at 6 p.m. Thursday
at Alice Arts Center, 1428 Alice Street, Oakland. The public is invited.
Malonga said her family has been through several challenges and they are holding
each other up through the rough spots.
" He has left his mark on us and hopefully we'll try to continue his legacy
and someday be a fraction of how great he was," Malonga, 22, said.
Along with his daughter, Casquelourd is survived by his wife Cynthia Malonga;
his daughter, Lungusu Malonga; and his sons, Kiazi and Boueta-Mbgongo Malonga.
Services are tentatively scheduled for Saturday.
By Laura
Casey, STAFF WRITER
Oakland
Tribune, June 17,2003
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