This month, The Cultural Beat is starting a new series of Lead Stories which will focus on preserving the memories and histories of the early dancers and drummers of our communities. Each quarter we will select a dancer or drummer who made an impact in our cultural community but who has now moved on to join the ancestors. This month we begin the series with the story of Malonga Casquelourd.

Auguste Leonard Malonga Casquelourd was born in Doula, Cameroon on November 5, 1947, while his father, a military officer, was stationed there. His family is orginally from the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville) and is from the Bakongo ethnic group. Shortly after his birth, the family returned home to Brazzaville, Congo. Malonga started dancing at an early age and received his formal training at Community Fetes, a network of indigenous cultural centers near Brazzaville. His natural leadership skills were apparent early. As a teenager he was an influential organizer and major force within a network of youth led militias whose purpose was to create a climate that would lead to the Congo's independence.

By 1965, he was a principal dancer with the National Congolese Dance Company. He toured Africa, Europe and the United States with the company and later moved to Europe as choreographer and principal performer and resident choreographer with Le Ballet Diaboua in Paris.

By 1972, he moved to the United States and founded TANAWA, the first central African dance company in the United States.Throughout his career in the United States, he also taught dance and African culture at several colleges including New York College, New York University, Stanford University and San Francisco State.

Malonga Casquelourd began making his mark in the African dance community in the US as soon as he arrived. After four years on the east coast, he settled in East Palo Alto, California for a time and taught Congolese dance classes there for many years. When he arrived on the west coast, East Palo Alto or "Nairobi" was a hotbed of African culture and was the birthplace of FUA DIA CONGO in 1977. Malonga soon became a magnet that drew Congolese artists to the US, particularly to the San Francisco Bay area, and created a strong community atmosphere there. In 1979, Malonga established the first African dance and drum camp in the US, which became an institutional tradition that continues today. In that same year Malonga began teaching in Oakland, CA. His daughter, Muisi-kong, recalls as a child watching her father working with his dancers and then with her as well. She recalls that he taught every one with unrelenting patience, all the while pushing them to achieve and to go beyond their own self imposed limits. She recalls watching her father working with clumsy, uncoordinated people and helping them transform into fearless dancers who carried themselves with pride and confidence.

While in Oakland, he helped establish Everybody's Creative Arts Center, which latter became the Alice Arts Center. Over the years, after relocating to Oakland, Malonga worked valiantly to keep the Alice Arts Center open. The city of Oakland attempted to take control of the building and close the Center. Upon Malonga's death, city officials vowed to honor his memory by leaving the center's doors open to the community. In recognition of Malonga's efforts to save the building and in recognition of his contributions to the Oakland community, the Alice Arts Center was renamed the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts in 2005.

During his lifetime he was honored with a number of prestigious awards including the Isadore Duncan Award and The Bay Area Music Award. Posthumously, the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival renamed their lifetime achievemet award for excellence in ethnic dance to the Malonga Casquelourd Lifetime Achievement Award. In recognition of his contributions to the Alice Arts Center, it was renamed in 2005 to the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts.

Malonga left behind a loving family and a dance community that misses his presence. When he passed, obituaries of him ran in major publications throughout the nation and the world, including the San Francisco Chronicle and the New York Times. His children, Muisi-kongo Malonga, Miazi Malonga, Boueta-Mbongo Malonga, Lungusu Malonga, as well as other members of his extended family, work tirelessly to preserve the legacy their father has passed to them.

Malonga's work truly exemplifies a profound belief in a "Wa Dia Fua Yika Dio," a Congolese proverb that means - - What you inherit you must add value to.