Published by Dancers' Group, In Dance is discourse and dialogue to unify, strengthen, and amplify.
in dance SPRING 2023 DISCOURSE + DIALOGUE TO UNIFY, STRENGTHEN + AMPLIFY
P.18 They will always hate the Conga
P.08 How home remembers me
P.34 The Soul Train Line
CONTENTS
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WELCOME by NKEIRUKA ORUCHE, Guest Editor
HOME IS WHERE THE DANCE IS. When I was 8, my claim to fame was ‘best dancer’ champion at family friends' birthday parties. Yet, at that age, I never imagined that the at-home dance sessions and “Nkay, oya come and dance for us” my young adult aunties would demand, would materialize as a career largely based in dance. I knew I was mag- netized by dance, and dancers. Yet, I didn't have the ‘when I grow up I want to be a dancer’ ambi- tion. I never imagined it was something a person could be.
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Typically for people of African descent, dance is in the fabric of our being. It's a core part of our social
environment. It’s how we pass time. How we survive. How we show love. Most of our introduction to dance was 'informal'. You didn't need permission, or sec- ond-by-second instruction of what and how you moved. When I got this opportunity to Guest Edit, I knew that I wanted to start from ‘the beginning’. The home. I was excited about exploring how dance shows up for us without the barriers of institutions, without the constraints of capitalism, and without the judgment of society. This issue explores our intimate and informal connections to dance. Even though the feature articles focus on ‘dancer-dancers’, I wanted to know more than what we see on stage, or in classes or at events. You get to explore how traditional dance practice in diaspora connects back to the places of origin via three Bay Area multi-generational African Dance families; Dioufs (Diamano Coura), Muisi-kongo & Kiazi Malonga (Fua Dia Congo), and Kanukai Chigamba (Chinyakare Ensemble). ‘Ancestral Re-memberance’ employs prayer and a playlist to connect to our roots. ‘Uninterrupted Refuge’, and ‘Wash Spin Repeat’ poetically express emo- tions associated with dance at home. ‘1st Dance Party’ and ‘The Do's and Don'ts of the Soul Train Line’ are hilarious takes on our connections to dance in social environments. In ‘How We Danced At Home’, we see regular folk who don’t con- sider themselves dancers share memories. ‘The Conga will set you free’, and ‘Discarding our Dance means Defacing Ourselves’ are willful reflections on tradi- tion in the face of societal erasure.
34/ The Do's and Don'ts of the Soul Train Line by Aries Jordan 38/ Discarding our Dance
08 / How home remembers me by Kanukai Chigamba 14 / Ancestral Re-memberance (Egypt) + Playlist by Eman Desouky 18/ They will always hate the Conga by Marley Pulido 20/ Keepers of Home: Muisi-kongo & Kiazi Malonga by Nkeiruka Oruche 30/ Uninterrupted Refuge by Kemi Role 32/ First House Party by Robert Liu-Trujillo
Dancers’ Group gratefully acknowledges the support of Bernard Osher Foundation, California Arts Council, Fleishhacker Foundation, Grants for the Arts, JB Berland Foundation, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, Koret Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, San Francisco Arts Commission, Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation, Walter & Elise Haas Fund, William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, Zellerbach Family Foundation and generous individuals.
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means Defacing Ourselves by Ifeanyi Akabueze
DANCERS’ GROUP Artist Administrator Wayne Hazzard Artist Resource Manager Andréa Spearman Community Resource Manager Shellie Jew Administrative Assistants Anna Gichan
42/ Lovers of Home: The Diouf Family by Nkeiruka Oruche 54/ Wash Spin Repeat – The eMotion Machine by Lamisha Duree 56/ How We Danced at Home by ZioraMmachi 58/ In Community Highlights and resources,
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As we continue to emerge from isolation I invite you to dance with 8 year-old me, through this issue.
—Nkeiruka
Cover photo by Aneesah Dryver
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Strengthening Communities. Catalyzing Inclusion. Cultivating Belonging.
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“ Madhuweeeee, nyatso kuchema kunge wafirwa . I need to hear the sadness of the little girl you are singing about in your voice.” Mhamha Henry would shout during Mhande rehearsals where I had to lead the song Mudzimu Wangu. I would play around with high and low cries while sing- ing it until she said “yeaaaahhh, that’s it, we are almost there.” The memory of how I learned this song has stuck with me until today. It is one of my favorite songs to sing and dance to. Every
time people hear me sing this song, they are moved which always takes me back to when I learned it. by KANUKAI CHIGAMBA how home remembers me
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Fred Changundega, who composed a song with very similar sections, so we mixed up the lyrics and struggled through the whole session. “Okay, iwewe Wadza, imba tione , since you want to act like you already have it all set.” Sekuru Joe gave Wadza, a tyrannical look as he put her on the spot to sing. As we fought yawns, and the shutting of our eye- lids, Wadza, my older cousin sister, got up, fixed her skirt and stood in front of us giggling like a baby hyena. Buju, my older cousin brother, and childhood partner in crime, who sat next to me, bumped my shoulder to draw my attention to Wadzas ner- vousness. Of course, this made us all laugh like water faucets that couldn’t shut. Through our shenanigans, with her chest up and head help up high, Wadza sang the “Kubvira, kubva Zambezi kusvika Limpopo…” part first, instead of the “Neropa, neropa zhinji ramagamba…” Before we could utter ours, Wadza led the choir by laughing like a lost wild goat. Sekuru Joe’s chronicles of teach- ing us dance were always comedic. One day, while practicing Dinhe, my cousin, Moses/Mhozi, struggled to coordinate his arms and legs. After he’d had enough, Sekuru
Mhamha Henry, my aunt, the oldest child in my mother’s family. One of the greatest mbira players and dancers in Zimbabwe. Mhamha Henry always had a way of getting you to reach a part of yourself, you did not know you had, until she shook you a couple of times. Some days, she would show you a dance move or song once, and you better make sure you do some- thing as close to that, if not better, when it’s your turn. For the most part, this has been how I learned music and dance. In my family, we learned our traditional dances by watching older family members during Bira ceremo- nies or while hanging out at home. “Zvinhu zvese zvatiinazvo…zvinoda kupembererwa baba…” , different high and low pitches of people who were singing and celebrating in one of the new thatched houses at our fam- ily home in Hatfield would wake the dead. Whether it was the sharp down and the heart of the beat, hosho being played or maoko arikuomberwa , or the drum or a long line of mbira
players running their fingers on that instrument like it doesn’t hold about 28 keys on it, every intricate sound made in that room created one beau- tiful mbira song that highlighted how people felt in that moment. Around 2002-3, Asekuru Chigamba and Gogo Achihoro, my maternal grandparents, hosted an all night Bira ceremony to bless our new home in Hatfield. Think of a house warming party, but instead of people bringing gifts such as plants or wall art, peo- ple brought all-night prayers and a search for guidance and protection of the new home from the ancestors through music and dance. Family and friends from afar danced, sang, ate, and drank hwahwa, masese eseven days. At eight years old, I struggled to stay awake. Yet, in the early hours of the morning, my uncle, Sekuru Joe, decided it was the best moment to have my cousins and I sit in front of him to sing the Zimbabwe national anthem and create choreography to it. Thanks to Solomon Mutswairo &
Joe’s tall frame rose up from his chair asking us if we do not know how to walk nor- mal. “When you walk nor- mal, your arms and legs natu- rally go opposite. I have never seen a person that steps with their right leg and their right hand follows.” Again, uncon- trollable laughter ensued. We had created complexity from a part of our everyday life activities. “Ndave kuenda ini…” Ambuya would calmly sing and pause from her favorite sofa in the living room, the
“Zvinhu zvese zvatiinazvo…zvinoda kupember- erwa baba…” , different high and low pitches of people who were singing and celebrating in one of the new thatched houses at our family home in Hatfield would wake the dead.
Pictured: Clockwise L- R: Ambuya with her son, Henry Chigamba and 13 of her grandchildren; Ambuya; Asekuru; Irene Chigamba; painted thatched houses at the Chigamba Family compound; Chigamba Family home in Hatfield.
one with the best view of the TV. Once we heard her sing this line, we knew
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from streets corners to international conferences We specialize in multifaceted events, and experiences that provide opportunity for connecting people, sharing ideas, and creative exploration.
Mudzimu Wangu’s response at Dance Mission Theater during a closing circle after the viewing of the Mixtape of the Dead & Gone #1 performance I was a part of in 2022. It was a room filled with people who had just experienced death at a very intimate level through Nkeiruka’s work. A smile of “yes, that's it, we are almost there” feeling escaped my mouth the moment I felt people had reached a good place of pronouncing and singing these Shona lyrics beautifully. I reached for the girl Mhamha Henry once helped me search for within me, and we sang until every- one was sounding like one voice. My grandmother had a way of expressing love through dance and music. Even if you did not know the song she was sharing with you, you could feel the warmth of her heart through her voice. Since moving to the Bay Area in 2010, I have felt a similar feeling from my mother. Whether we are singing “Kura Uone” for the 100th time at home or at performances, or as she decorates our house like a museum with endless Zimbabwean and African artifacts, my mother has found a way to keep my siblings and I connected to our roots. She has built a home away from home. This has also given us a way to communicate and learn in ways that I did not know would help me stay grounded in my own journey as an artist. KANUKAI CHIGAMBA is a multifaceted dancer, musician, performer, and burgeoning photogra- pher. She started dancing at a young age in Hara- re, Zimbabwe, at Biras and as part of Mhembero Dance Troupe. She is the Assistant Director of the renowned Chinyakare Ensemble, and principal in Gbedu Town Radio, a Pan Afro Urban Music and Dance Ensemble. Chigamba has performed all over the United States, including at the San Fran- cisco Ethnic Dance Festival, Oregon Zimfest, and Monterey Bay Reggaefest, Stern Grove Festival, Carnegie Hall, and Oakland Museum of California. Her travels to Togo, Nigeria and her work with Yo- ram Savion/YAK Films, Julia Chigamba, Nkeiruka Oruche, Destiny Arts, and Afro Urban Society find her embarking on her photographic essay series featuring African women navigating complexities of emotional expression.
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L-R: Kanukai, and Julia Chigamba
we were in for a long night. Ambuya Chihoro was our matriarch, and when- ever she had us dance and sing one of her favorite songs ‘Ndave Kuenda (I am leaving)’ , she took her time. How dare you start clapping before we arrive at the right groove for the call and response? Ambuya would silently give us another chance to get the song right. She would give us the lead line again, just a little louder than the last time. Singing this song now, hits differently. Chinyakare Ensemble, our family per- formance group in Oakland, founded by my mother, Julia Chigamba recently performed at Ashkenaz Music and Dance Community Center. I am con- vinced that our family has a deep con- nection to Dinhe rhythm. During our soundcheck, Ndave Kuenda was the song that came out of me unknowingly when I was asked to check the mic. I
respected Ambuya wanting to be in the space and went with the flow, but I could not finish as tears flooded my eyes and cheeks. My grandmother died in 2005, and her passing left a huge hole in my family. She was the keystone to the family. Every- one knew you could always come and dance kumba kwaAchihoro . Growing up, our time was filled with each other. When there was no elec- tricity we would sit around the fire with Ambuya and other adults. We would sing, play games and dance until people started retiring to their bedrooms one by one. Our personal lives were not separate from our art- istry, it was all blended in one like a hot pot of gango . “Nyarara mwana, Nyarara mwana…” I started slowly pro- nouncing the high and low parts to
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LISTEN TO THE STIRRINGS of your copper brown skin, the greatest gift of the Egyptian sun, the creator of all life. The focus of your deep eyes, molten and luscious. The rhythm of your heartbeat, strong and deep, as it drums your life’s beautiful song. Can you hear it? Do you know what language that is? We have been waking up to this melody for centuries. Ancestral Re-memberance (Egypt) by EMAN DESOUKY
LISTEN
NUT 2 , oh holy one. Goddess of the sky. You guided our people across the Mediterranean sea. The currents carried us to the West. Propelled by the winds of thunderstorms and Sahara dust* 3 across the Atlantic, to places where they spoke different languages, but were mirror images of us. You remind us of the songs we sang when we landed and were greeted with care by the peoples of those lands. On our journey back home we anchored off the Western edge of our continent before making our way into the Mediterranean. We remember the pain You held bear- ing witness to the creaking ships that reeked of terror. A strange language not of this land echoed. Black bodies imprisoned, shackled, enslaved. Our fear floated into the heavens and You wept. Your tears falling through the skies, across the land, beating down against our skin. We sang songs of grief, drummed rhythms of courage as we watched our kin being forced onto the ships. We sang and sang. Together we opened our mouths as your name screamed through our throats, tossing our bodies to the sand, undulating, throwing dark tresses side to side through the air with our heads bent until our voices, raspy and pregnant with sadness, faded with the ships into the depths of the wailing Atlantic . We look into each other’s eyes and see the edges of NUT’s majesty: Altair, Pleiades, Alawaid, Andromeda, Kaitos. This is the map home. Oh Nut, sacred sky moth- er, You help us re-member that our ancestors created the universe. Reflections of us, returned whole. Now as we toss our bodies to the sand, throwing our dark tress- es side to side through the air, it is in reverence of You. And it is in reverence of us.
These are songs of re-membering* 1 . Of re-awakening. Let us re-member together:
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by DJ Emancipation
1 This act of “re-membering” is inspired by the work of Layla K. Feghali of River Rose Re-membrance, who says that we re-member in order to heal the “culture of severance” that characterizes our con- temporary world, a transformation of personal, ancestral, communal, and ecological traumas and violations towards a more life-affirming and dignified reality.
2 Goddess of the heavens, creator of the world, in Egyptian mythology 3 The Sahara Dust is a natural phenomenon where sand from the Sahara was blown by a storm across the Atlantic, to the lands of Borinquen, now known as Puerto Rico. I imagine these storms (which continue to this day) carried my ancestors, in partnership with the Phoenecians, across the Atlantic regularly way before Columbus was even an idea in the cosmos.
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Oh Sekhmet 5 , holiest of warriors! They saw our eyes, red from the tears we shed when they built the dam that flooded our ancestral lands. The Nile floods filled our sacred temples. Our homes were destroyed. Our culture epicenters washed away into the sea. They uprooted us, but didn’t know our roots have survived for eons, nourished and healed by those very same waters. They tried to drown us but they didn’t know we were descendants of Nubia’s Nile warriors. The Undrowned. Healing the earth. Rising eternal from the waters like the sacred blue lotus. Our Nubian songs filling the skies with our undying love for the land. They called you bloodthirsty but they do not know you. What they thought was blood in your eyes was really magic. Your rage is misunderstood. Our power frightens them. It roars across the lands in prayer, returning to us tenfold, filling us with your fierce love, as our undulating arms echo the soft hills and valleys of Nubia, and the soft tongue of our Nubian song. We re-member you. We re-member us. Eman Desouky is DJ Emancipation, and a fierce mama of a mag- ical 7 year old human. Her two decades of cultural work in the Bay Area are rooted in transformative justice practices that imagine a world without racism, colonialism, classism, and homophobia. Her current written and music curation work is an exploration of what embodiment of our ancestral remembrance looks, feels, but especially sounds like. Her ancestors ascend from the fertile soils of where the Nile river meets the Mediterranean Sea, the Horn of Africa, and the Turquoise Coast of Turkey. She currently resides on the ancestral lands of the Lisjan Ohlone people, also known as Oakland, CA.
Oh Isis 4 , divine Mother. They stole your name like they stole our ancestors from their tombs, stole our belong- ings, stole our lands. They took us from Your womb, oh holy One. They took us from ourselves when they said we were too ugly, too dark, too Black. They turned our sacred into a joke. Dis-membered. Severed our continent despite centuries of graceful crossings through/above/ below the Sahara by our kin. Are our dead lost and wan- dering because of the theft of our resting places? Will our ancestors know who we are? Will they find us? But as we are bent in grief, singing songs to the winds that carry our prayers on the Nile, we are no longer afraid. We dance with warm sand between our toes as we touch our foreheads to the fertile soil of the delta smelling like tears and blood, in reverence to You, di- vine Mother. Your magic is like a balm, oh Isis, healing the wounds of grief with each prayer of re-membrance, each moment we invoke the song of our people that tell stories of the majesty of who we are and where we come from. The balm that stitches us back to ourselves, whole. In the practice of being beyond space and time, moving our bodies together, you remind us that our lives are not scarce, they are Infinite.
4 The mother of us all in Egyptian mythology
5 Lion goddess, fierce warrior spirit in Egyptian Mythology
WRITER’S NOTE: through dance and the embodiment of song as prayer in homage to my ancestors, I defy the colonizers’ definition of who I am and where I come from.
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There was just almost never a moment of stillness in that place. Always some stray dog barking, some novela playing on the radio, some neighbors gossip- ing. Until everyone’s breathing would slow down as if they were looking to synchronize with the next door neigh- bor. Inhaling excitement, exhaling [as loud their lungs allowed] Hurry up, the Conga’s coming! Not a single soul would stay inside. Siento un bombo mamita, me está llamando / I hear a bombo mommy, it’s calling me During colonial times, the enslaved and free Negroes could go out and have a fun day. But be careful, they will start demanding freedom if you let them . The police were always there. Watching us. When Cuba became an independent nation in 1902, politicians rushed to use the Conga for their politicking. Some in favor, some against it. What’s more dangerous than joyful Negroes singing out loud our deepest truths? Always using poignant street jargon, the Conga thrived in a spontaneity that’s never not political. That’s why dictator Gerardo Machado banned the Conga in the 1930’s. Dictator-to-be Fulgencio Batista lifted the ban in 1937 and the Conga flourished as a perform- ing art. From the hood to the world! Growing up in 1990’s Cuba, with the anxiety and desperation living in dictatorship during a crisis, the Conga somehow managed to feed our souls. It made us defiant. We got sassy and provocative. Even when the times changed, the police stayed. With a baton in their hands and a whip in their minds. The Conga and the police. Inseparable.
Tumba la caña, anda ligero, mira que viene el mayoral sonando el cuero. / Cut down the sugar cane, keep it cool, watch out the overseer is com- ing cracking the whip. I dance to the Conga from my living room these days. Sometimes hoping to hear some shout Hurry up, the Conga’s coming! Freedom’s coming. So don’t just come over here to shake your body, baby, do the Conga. Let us treasure this Cuban Negro polyrhythmic com- munal love language. This might be our last utopian space of ulti- mate freedom.
MARLEY PULIDO is a Cuban born historian, community organizer and archivist. Marley grew up in El Cerro, Havana, a historically Black, poor and work-
I t was a sunny Havana afternoon when the Conga was born. The Orishas came down from the heav- ens and gifted it to us, mortals, so we could learn to be free. His- torians say that the colonizers gave the enslaved a day off to parade throughout the city and that’s how the Conga came to be. I don’t believe them. The Conga’s too sacred for such origin story. The Conga is widely known as Cuban carnival music. ¡Un, dos, tres, pa’llá!
THEY WILL ALWAYS HATE THE CONGA by MARLEY PULIDO
¡Un, dos, tres, pa’cá! That’s how you dance it. One, two, three, to the left! One, two, three, to the right! The swag comes from within. The lead singer guides the crowd improvising call and response verses. The drummers beat at their own rhythm as the neighborhood follows them dancing its worries away. Because my family lived in the back of the solar , our rundown government sub- sidized dwelling, we couldn’t always hear the Boom-boom-boom Tom-tom-tom .
ing class neighborhood where his family has lived in for over seven generations. He graduat- ed from the school of History at the University of Havana. After migrating to the U.S., Marley became involved in social movements and community activism, focusing on issues affect- ing migrants and refugees and Black working people. In 2019, Marley founded Historia Negra de Cuba, a multilingual digital archive and multimedia creative community curating doc- uments, videos, audios and images to preserve and honor the Black Cuban historical memory of the island and the diaspora.
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KEEPERS OF HOME Muisi-kongo & Kiazi Malonga BY NKEIRUKA ORUCHE PHOTOGRAPHY BY SASHA KELLEY | CREATIVE DIRECTOR: NKEIRUKA ORUCHE
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“IS THIS MS. MALONGA? Oh my God. I Love her. I will be in her dance class Saturday.” This is the hair- dresser E’s response, during our correspondence in my efforts to book a potential stylist for Muisi-kongo’s hair in preparation for our photoshoot for this issue. When I share this with Muisi-kongo, even over voice notes, I can feel her squeamishness. Through her “you shouldn’t have told me that,” I can tell that she’s struggling with the challenges of being a person in the public eye. “You just have to accept that people will see you as roy- alty, even if you don’t think that’s what you’re trying to do,” I offer her. I’m always tickled when I get to witness these sides of Ms. Malonga, the one not in class teaching, the one not on stage performing. The side of her that shows she’s not quite sure it’s nice to know that goddesses use the toilet, and have insecurities. Yet, I totally understand where E is coming from. I too have had many “Omg, is this The Muisi-kongo Malonga?” Even as I’m texting her. Even as we slowly build a friend- ship and comradeship that’s been a long time coming. It’s an early Sunday morning, in an East Oakland home. Furniture has been rearranged for the photoshoot with siblings Muisi-kongo and Kiazi, children of the late renowned Malonga Casquelord, and their children Matsoua and Siama. Muisi-kongo barrels in with piles and piles of items, followed by her eight-year old son Matsoua. “Sorry I’m late, you know I had to get all this stuff you asked for.” I nod in response, and carry on with placing outfits on a clothing rack.
Kiazi shows up about half an hour later, his daughter Siama in the crook of one arm, and bags of what I can tell are all the items for a toddler on his other arm. “I brought a couple of items that are in the car, do you need me to bring them out?” I let him know that I need him to first try on the options I’ve selected for him. I have to admit there’s apprehension in my style direction. “Want me to try this on?… Oh is this vin- tage?… Alright alright I see you!!” Buoyed by his first response, I continue. I hand him flowy orange-orange satin trousers, and pointy cheetah print shoes, and whisper ‘Sapeur’ under my breath, hoping to conjure understand- ing of where I’m going with this. “Oh is this, what we doing? Alright come on then!” I relax. My work is going to be easier than I imagined. Although Kiazi, with his easy-going dispo- sition, and Muisi-kongo with her undercover humor, are charming, the real stars of the show are the children. Siama, a strikingly ver- bal and fully engaged two-year old with firm boundaries, and an ability to clearly articulate her needs, and Matsoua, a friendly, curious, easy-going, and theatrical 8-year old. Siama immediately owns the space, and in response, Kiazi is on full papa duty. Making sure to follow through
with the details; snacks, activities, ensuring that the furniture doesn’t crash into her. He’s speaking to her in Lari, and she’s responding with under- standing.
ALTHOUGH KIAZI, WITH HIS EASY-GOING DISPOSITION, AND MUISI-KONGO WITH HER UNDERCOVER HUMOR, ARE CHARM- ING, THE REAL STARS OF THE SHOW ARE THE CHILDREN.
Not long after this initial exchange, as she walks back into the room, she pauses mid stride, “Ohhh, I see what you did. You told me a time two hours earlier than the real arrival time. Ah I see you. You already knew who you were dealing with.” This is the kick off to Muisi- kongo’s hilarity throughout the session, as we dress her, oil her up, do her make up, we witness multiple sides of Ms. Malonga, from the sage introspect to the class clown. As we go through the suitcases and baskets of fabrics and artifacts that Muisi-kongo brought, I’m struck by how much of a keeper she is. An archive of her family and cul- ture. I feel as though I’m witnessing layers and layers of family story, traditions, that one couldn’t begin to unravel in one sitting. I feel lucky to handle her ancestor bottles. Through these it’s apparent that Muisi-kongo is deeply con- nected, and guided by those rich in cultural traditions, and that she can be that also for her communities.
I crouch down and face her to talk her through the day. “We’re going to do hair, get dressed, and take some pho- tos.” She stares back at me, as though trying to figure out if I’m someone she should trust. Fair enough. To break the ice, I say “alright let’s take a selfie.” This seems to do the trick. “Here’s your dress, your shoes, and your purse.” The purse is the final piece of the puzzle for her to be convinced, and accept me. “I took the screen away, there are other kids here, he can connect with them instead.” Kiazi mutters to his older sib- ling. She responds with an almost imperceptible nod. Mat- soua, the subject of the commentary, is delightful in front of the camera, hardly needing any prompts to activate exciting poses, and faces. “I think she’s pooped.” Muisi-kongo picks up her niece and beelines to the bathroom to change her diaper. And on it goes.
Pictured: Clockwise: Kiazi Malonga, and Muisi-kongo Malonga; Matsoua and Muisi-kongo; Siama
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MUISI-KONGO: He did not get his American citizenship until 2002 (after September 11). I don’t know how inter- ested he was in being an American citizen. I wonder if he was holding on to a dream of returning, but finally accepted that his family, community and life were here. KIAZI: Yeah, he had his green card. But in terms of giving up the Congolese passport, he wasn’t. He was real ‘African Bushman’ *chuckle*.
of home. As a friend, I can’t share everything that I’ve heard, but I’m certainly happy to have been invited in. Who makes up the Malonga family? MUISI-KONGO: Our Parents, Malonga Casquelourd; Dr. Faye McNair-Knox; Norma Jean Ishman-Brown; Cyn- thia Phillips. Their Children, Muisi-kongo Malonga; Kiazi Malonga; Lungusu Malonga; Boueta-Mbongo Malonga, and their Grandchildren: Malonga Matsoua
Hemil Koub; Ma’Syiah Malonga- May; Siama Mpandu Malonga; Ynez Nzolani Malonga. On Origin KIAZI: We are Kongo people who originated from [the area that is] modern-day Angola, northern Angola. Kongo dia Ntotela or “The Kongo Kingdom” included Angola, parts of Congo-Brazzaville, and Con- go-Kinshasa. MUISI-KONGO: Boko district. South- ern part of what is now the Republic of Congo. Before that our origins are in Mbanza Kongo in modern-day Angola. Our names are like a road map. Our dad always said that, you know, he gave us our names so that we wouldn’t get lost. I’m the first. Muisi-kongo, which means ‘one from the Kongo’, then Kiazi is num- ber two, the village that we come from. Lungusu is named after our great-grandfather. And lastly, Boue- ta-Mbongo is named after a prom- inent revolutionary figure in Con- golese history who fought fiercely against colonialism. On Parents KIAZI: [Our Father] had a whole mil- itary background prior to coming to this country. When the Congo got its independence in 1960, he was in his early teens and already very active politically. We have pictures of him with Mao Tse Tung, as part of a del- egation of young leaders sent by the Congolese government to China for special training. A lot of those people in the pictures were either killed or are in exile.
L to R: Kiazi Malonga; Muisi-kongo Malonga
Between fitting clothes, acclimating to the bodies in the space, and caring for the children, it takes us a few hours to get rolling. But after a few warm up shots, they begin to loosen up. Things go up a notch when the sounds of Koffi Olomide’s ‘Effrakata’ coming out of the speakers, hits its climax. The Malongas dip, drop, and sway with the ease and nuance of true children of the soil. Muisi-kongo Malonga and Kiazi Malonga are the chil- dren of Malonga Casquelourd, a world-renowned Con- golese dancer, drummer and choreographer who built an exceptional legacy in the traditional arts in the US, and spent half his life activating Congolese culture at the Alice Arts Center (now named after him), in Oakland, Califor- nia. Malonga developed a following at an early age as a dancer for Community Fetes, a network of indigenous cultural centers near Brazzaville, in the Congo Repub- lic, where he grew up. He was a principal dancer with the National Congolese Dance Company, toured Africa, Europe and the United States. In 1972 he went to New York, and was a co-founder of Tanawa, the first central African dance company in the US. Malonga moved to Oakland in the mid-1970s, and joined CitiCenter Dance Theater to teach Congolese dance and drum classes. From there, he created his own dance troupe, Fua Dia Congo. In this interview we hear from his first two children.
Muisi-kongo Malonga is a dancer and culture bearer dedicated to preserving culture and cultivating the heal- ing power of African arts traditions. As Artistic Director of Fua Dia Congo, Muisi-kongo continues the pioneering cultural preservation work begun in 1977 by her parents. She founded BottleTree Culture, a grassroots arts organi- zation to reanimate the presence of African cultural arts in her native East Palo Alto. Her current projects include Congo Danced A Nairobi Blues, a site-specific dance- theater production and Lufuki!, an international dance collaboration. Kiazi, a child protégé of his late father, who performed with his father’s Fua Dia Congo Performing Arts Com- pany from age of 6, became a lead performer, then Musical Director. He currently teaches drumming, and released his debut album, Tembo Kia Ngoma in March of 2021. The interview session with Kiazi and Muisi-kongo is mostly a listening session. I’m a co-passenger on a train overhearing close friends talk. I don’t even need to ask lead- ing questions. For the most part, I insert myself to ask qual- ifying questions, or to expand on something I heard. Like a friend who’s come to visit, sitting with siblings trading jabs at each other, except, this time it’s anecdotes and les- sons. Their father Malonga Casquelord is the enduring focal point. He is responsible for world building. He is the keeper
L-R: Matsoua, Muisi-kongo, Kiazi Malonga, and Siama
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where she served as musical director. We attended family reunions every two years and she was the director for the big family choir. My mom passed on September 12, 2018. KIAZI: My mother is Norma Jean Ishman-Brown. She was one of three, all girls. She was a middle child, and the only one that had children. She was an engineer who graduated from Stanford with a degree in Human Biology. The only connection I had to her side were her two sisters and her parents. My grandfather is from Mississippi, and my grandmother, Texas, Arkansas. They moved to Southern California, then Vegas, then back to Southern California. I was pretty close to that side of the family until my mom passed on November 21, 1998. On Growing Up KIAZI: [I grew up in] East Palo Alto. We have different moms, and spent weekends and vaca- tions [together]. We have a very intricate family web. We took trips together. We have a lot of the same memories and expe- riences even though it wasn’t a 24/7 situation. MUISI-KONGO: I grew up between East Palo Alto and Oakland. I have two older sis- ters, Halili and RaShida from my mom’s first marriage. I spent a couple of years, from [age] 7 to 9 in France living with our dad’s younger sister. A strategy to make sure we were linked
get home from rehearsal and people would come over and we had dinner at like midnight. You’d go to bed, get woken up at 1:00 in the morning to get up and come eat because rehearsal ended at 11. KIAZI: Let me jump in right here. So they get woken up to eat but I got woken up to make the fufu before y’all got there. MUISI-KONGO: The dance was the central activity, really. But community was also an activity. We do this thing together, and it creates this energy beyond the dance and drumming. It wasn’t always people that were involved in the dance. He was a magnet for people in general. KIAZI: He was super good at building people. I didn’t get this from him because sometimes I get tired of being around people, but he never did. Our house was open. Just community always. He was super instrumental in build-
of that. Other times, I would come back to Oakland to live with our dad. Even though we were splitting our time between our moms’ households and his, it’s not disjointed in my mind.
KIAZI: We used to call on the phone, and after the first six months, she had a French accent. It was hella funny.
MUISI-KONGO: People!! Immersion! I grew up doing a lot of musical stuff. My mom, my two older sisters, and I would perform during Kwanzaa, songs by Sweet Honey in the Rock and other revolutionary Black things. I spent a lot of that time lip syncing because it was terrifying to be up there singing. People still come up to me, making fun of me about lip syncing. KIAZI: I lived with my mom, and my two younger sisters. I have another younger sister from my mother’s marriage. We lived in East Menlo Park. I played a lot of basketball.
ing a community based in that culture and bringing a lot of artists to grow the cul- ture here, even people who were not Con- golese, who were not artists, he [got] them involved, to learn something in the arts, to be able to increase how the art was being presented. We have several aunties and
THE MOVEMENT AND THE ENERGY AROUND WHAT WE WERE DOING, WHAT WE GREW UP IN, WAS SO STRONG THAT OUR FRIENDS ENDED UP BECOMING A PART OF WHAT WE WERE DOING.
uncles who were teachers, dancers, drummers, singers, art- ists, musicians. A number of people outside of him and our greater family circle who were involved in arts and influ- ence and guide our artistic journey. MUISI-KONGO: The movement and the energy around what we were doing, what we grew up in, was so strong that our friends ended up becoming a part of what we were doing. The friends that we grew up with, became family and were also involved in the art form. That ave- nue served multiple purposes. I probably started actu- ally liking dance for myself around 12, where it no lon- ger felt like a chore. You couldn’t just not participate. When I didn’t want to dance, I drummed a little bit with Diata Diata. But it was clear, I had to do something. [My father] would push but with limits. You weren’t just gonna sit with your arms folded and not be a part of what was happening. When he started the youth com- pany, Ballet Kizingu, and got our peers involved, that’s when I felt myself blossom. I had spent most of my apprenticeship learning alongside adults. When we got together with our peers, that unlocked the joy. On Going to the Congo MUISI-KONGO: 1988. [We were] very excited. KIAZI: We definitely were. Lungusu cried for a good period of time. Boueta wasn’t born yet. Muisi and I just
I performed with Pops. But, he would always make sure that the arts weren’t impacting school. My mother passed at 16, then I moved up to Oakland full time and was commuting (to school), until I graduated. On life with Malonga MUISI-KONGO: A message we always heard from my father is, there’s no such thing as a half sibling. There’s no confusion around the fact that we’re siblings. We grew up in different households partially as an extension of each other. But in the mind, he’s not my half brother because that’s not a thing. That’s not how we grew up. That’s not like the mindset that we were given. KIAZI: Pops used to have us at the [Diata Diata] rehears- als on Sundays. I’m like, dude, can I just go home? When I was younger, I used to hate to be the token African boy that would drum at Black History Month in school. I’m trying to play ball, you know? As I got older, reflecting on the fact that I come from parents who saw the importance of being rooted in art. Pops would always tell us to always master and learn your art because it will take you places and put you in rooms with people who otherwise you wouldn’t be connected with, and if you need them, you have a plethora of a community that you can lean into.
MUISI-KONGO: My mom is Dr. Faye McNair-Knox. Her mother, Sarah Lee Williams McNair was from Augusta, GA and her father, Rev. Elisha Bonaparte McNair was from Bassfield, Mississippi. I think both of our moms’ families have roots in Mississippi before migrating West. My mom was a preacher’s kid. She was a brilliant scholar who studied and taught at Stanford, a super revolution- ary, Pan-Africanist. We attended African-centered schools and grew up in the same CME church she grew up in,
to our family and had a common language to communi- cate with. My mom was a military brat similar to our dad. Okay. Our dad’s father was part of an African infantry unit known as ‘Les tirailleurs Sénégalais’ in World War II. I lived in a few different places. My mom was a scholar…a college professor and linguist, but she kept up the pattern of fre- quent movement from her upbringing in a military family throughout her academic career. A couple of years in Vir- ginia, in Miami, in New Jersey. I was with her for some
MUISI-KONGO: Our dad cooked a lot. People are always coming over. People were always living with us. We’d
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KIAZI: For Siama, I follow Pop’s perspective. I want her to find something that she’s super passionate about from an academic standpoint and then dedicate her life to that. She already likes to dance, so hopefully I’m jumpstarting and continue to pour into that. I wanted to be able to look at my daughter and be like, yeah, she’s doing her thing. I want to give them the gift of knowledge of self and culture. MUISI-KONGO: My desire at this stage is to center our efforts in passing the torch to our replacements. For my own son, nieces, nephews, and our community chil-
hung out on the plane and acted like we were getting drunk off of soda. Fall asleep, wake up, order all-you- can-drink soda. Up until that point, and even after, peo- ple would communicate via letter but Pops would buy the boom boxes and sit down and talk and have us tell messages to our grandparents and all of the family there. They would do the same. He would send those tapes. Kind of like long voice notes. So coming into that trip, even though I was six, she was seven, we had a really good sense of who our family was. We had a lot of stories about our grandparents and uncles. When we saw people, it was like, “remember this story?” That’s him. Remember this one? Boom, that’s him. The one who got the whoo- pin’ when he was 40. That’s him. KIAZI: [The next time I went was] 2006. I would have gone earlier. I was pushing him to go. When our grand- father passed in 2001, I was pushing to go and he was like, no, stay in school. Then I got into an overseas pro- gram in Tanzania. All right, I got my money. I’m going to Congo after. I’m buying my ticket. If you want to come
who I am in my Congolese identity. Knowing the arts and the culture helps me understand myself and my peo- ple better. This is who I am. This is where my family is from. This is why things are this way. You can look at yourself and understand your journey a little bit better. MUISI-KONGO: Traditional music and dance. Yeah, it’s a ritual, it’s an activity, it’s a skill. Most of all, it’s a portal. We can get into the politics of do you have to be born somewhere, to be ‘of’ somewhere? I wasn’t born in the Congo, but what’s very real is blood memory. What’s very real is that these are spiritual practices. So you absolutely tap into an ancient knowing that connects you to God and spirit and to all those who came before. I absolutely believe that being a practitioner of these traditions gives you that gateway that you can plug into at any given point. I’m very much a Congolese African American. Yet, all roads lead back to the same place. I was born and raised in the U.S. I’m deeply rooted. I’m connected. And I have different ways that I can tap into that connection. The dance is a very potent way where
NKEIRUKA ORUCHE is a cultural organizer, multimedia creative of Igbo de- scent, who specializes in Afro-Urban culture and its intersections with social issues. She is a co-founder of BoomShake, a social justice and music educa- tion organization, and founder and executive artistic director of Afro Urban Society, an incubator and presenter of Pan Afro-Urban arts, culture, and social discourse. In 2022, she created and directed ‘Mixtape of the Dead & Gone #1’– Ahamefula’, a shit-just-got-real dance-theater piece about life, death, and what the fuck comes next. She is a 2022 Dance/USA Artist Fellow, a Kikwetu Honors Awardee, a 2018 NYFA Immigrant Artist Fellow, YBCA 100 Honoree, and recipient of awards from Creative Work Fund, MAP Fund, New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, California Arts Council, among others.
dren. I want to see with my own eyes these traditions in the hands of those trusted and trained to carry them for- ward. I want to see the impact they will have on the world. KIAZI: I try not to regret. I like to think before I move. But, people pass- ing, you can’t really control that. So there’s a sense of dang, I wish they could be here because, this little one, she’s pretty groovy. MUISI-KONGO: I really wish my par- ents were here to see their extension. I would’ve loved to witness their rela- tionships with their grandchildren as they grow. My mom passed away when Matsoua was about 4. I keep his mem- ory of her fresh by talking about her often. I also tell him stories about his Nka nka (grandpa). There will always be a longing for their physical presence, but they are present in other ways. On Home KIAZI: Congo for me is home because Pops raised us always saying, this is not your home. You have a huge fam- ily. We have land. Referencing this far off place that he eventually took us. Our mamas were African American and they found home in the culture. That’s why I can identify with Congo being home. MUISI-KONGO: Home for me is in my body first. Wherever I go, I am already there. Home is also where my Ancestors have put down roots… East Palo Alto, Oakland, Bassfield, Augusta and the Congo.
I can have this direct conversation, not contingent upon birthplace but rather birthright.
MY HEART IS IN CONGO. IT'S WHERE I IDENTIFY, WHERE I FEEL AS A PERSON, MY HEALING, MY GROWTH THE WAY I LOOK AT SPIRITUALITY IS THROUGH THAT LENS.
KIAZI: Not everybody from back home is super duper into traditional
with me, you can come. Fast forward, the accident hap- pened. We all didn’t actually make it back as a collective until 2006. MUISI-KONGO: He went in ‘83, in ‘88. He went to bury our grandfather in 2001. He wasn’t able to go when our grandmother passed in ‘98.
beliefs, or the traditional art forms. A lot of folks will even be so much more into Western ways, whether it’s worship music to the point where they know shit about stuff that’s going on here that you don’t even know because you’re just like, I’m not following it like that. I think being outside of the country is definitely a way to stay connected. It’s easy to lose your identity in a place where it’s like putting a drop of sugar in a huge thing of coffee. You won’t taste the sweetness. If you don’t hold on to the little you got you can get lost in the sauce. On life ‘after’ Malonga. Hopes, Dreams, Regrets KIAZI: Pops was the glue that connected everybody. With his transition shit shifts. We are evolving and finding new ways to connect as we grow. With me being a new dad, and Muisi with Matsoua, we’re connecting on parenting. We are seeing each other as adults, siblings, artists and parents. The artistic connection is always there. But as we walk into this new phase of our lives, there are new branches growing on this tree and we have to be mindful of how to tend them together. MUISI-KONGO: The hope is always to be able to pass these traditions on. Trying to balance the roles of parent and cultural caretaker, amongst other things, makes me reflect on how effective our dad was in everything that he was holding.
KIAZI: There was a civil war.
APRIL 21–30, 2023
On Cultural Identity & Connection KIAZI: I got a lot of questions around being of African descent here in America. You might come to school in something that’s a little different, an African print shirt. So I got teased a lot at first. In third grade I went to pub- lic school and [kids] made a story up about me being a young African boy prodigy who would go around the world giving speeches. MUISI-KONGO: There were a lot of different ways that he tried to connect us to our actual family in addition to how the arts connected us to the fact that we were from Congo and that was ingrained. KIAZI: My heart is in Congo. It’s where I identify, where I feel as a person, my healing, my growth, the way I look at spirituality is through that lens. I’m pretty solid on
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PHOTO BY KEGAN MARLING (l-r, clockwise) Photo courtesy of Upswing Aerial Dance, HeART with LINES Photo by Victor Talledos, BASE Residency Artists Photos courtesy of PUSH Dance Company.
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