The Malonga Arts Collective (MAC) is a coalition of 10 nonprofit arts organizations and individual teaching artists who have contractual agreements with the City of Oakland to reside and provide arts programming on the 2nd and 3rd Floors of the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts in Oakland, California.
Consequently, MAC envisions the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts as a thriving cultural hub at the intersection of the arts, culture, community belonging, and activism.
Founder, Artistic Director, and Choreographer Leslie Carter
The African Queens Dance Company empowers young girls, ages 7-18, to pursue physical, spiritual, and emotional wellness through dance. On and off the stage, we celebrate our culture and promote social action to make a difference in our San Francisco Bay Area community and the world. Today, the Queens still dance strong, with a new generation of dancers entering the world.
Art Director,
Baba Mosheh Milon, Sr.
Under the founder and artistic direction of Baba Mosheh Milon, Sr., a master drummer, percussionist, folklorist, and drum maker with over 50yrs of experience starting in Chicago, IL, the organization was established in Oakland in July 1989. Baba Mosheh is a "Tan-Tan Jali Ba" (keeper of the oral traditions of African drums and culture) and shares these traditions, drumming, and culture with at-risk youth, adults, and everyone willing to learn. Bantaba takes its name from a Mandingo term that describes the "community circle and gathering place for all important events," Baba Moshe institutes this in every class, program, and to the communities served.
Founder, Carla Service
Under the Direction of Carla Service for over 30 years, Dance-A-Vision is widely known to provide beginners, through experts, the opportunity to study with professional dance teachers and benefit from a pool of extensive knowledge in the dance world. Carla Service is dedicated to maintaining an uplifting, supportive, and motivating environment to experience dance's joyous and transformational magic.
Director Dr.Zak Diouf and
Artistic Director Naomi Washington
We provide access to and education of indigenous African and African Diaspora arts and culture through community classes, professional development workshops, arts-in-schools, apprenticeships, performances, and international cultural exchanges. Established In 1975, by the late Dr. Zakarya Diouf, Diamano Coura West African Dance Company was founded with the vision that cultural arts can save lives, revitalize communities and strengthen the economy. Over the last 47 years, we remain one of the longest-surviving African dance companies in the United States, and through our programming have directly touched the lives of over 100,000 youth, adults, and seniors.
Co-founder Deborah Vaughan
Founded in 1972, Dimensions Dance Theater's (DDT's) mission is to preserve and perpetuate African-derived dance forms through creating, teaching, and performing. Also, promote the knowledge and appreciation of African-derived dance that reflects the historical and cultural experiences of African Americans throughout the African Diaspora and contemporary lives. The company is widely recognized for presenting traditional African dances and contemporary choreography and theater drawn from the Caribbean, Jazz, and Modern dance idioms such as Folk, House, and Hip-hop. We also have a low-cost youth dance program, Rites of Passage (ROP).
Is a 45-year-old arts organization centered on cultural preservation and service through art. Our name, "Fua Dia Congo," means Congolese heritage, and since 1977, we have been sharing traditional music, dance, and culture from Central Africa, specifically the Kongo Kingdom. It is our honor to forward the work of our founder, Ta Malonga Casquelourd, to share a rich and powerful cultural legacy and to create space for communal healing through Kongo traditions.
Founder, Artistic Director,
Rudi Soriano
In May 1992, San Francisco students and teachers formed a group celebrating Philippine culture and tradition. LIKHA-Pilipino Folk Ensemble was founded by Artistic Director Rudi Soriano from this group. Since the first presentation at San Francisco State University's McKenna Theatre, the mission of LIKHA, which means "creation" in Tagalog, is to collect and preserve indigenous Philippine art forms as expressed in music, literature, dance, arts, crafts, and attire. This mission is realized through research, education, performance, collecting and curating, community outreach, and youth development.
Founder, Mestre Preguiça
Owner/Artistic Director/Lead Instructor, Anthony Fidel
(Busca Hé)
Established in 1984 in San Francisco by Mestre Preguiça and then in 1993 in Oakland at the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts by his student, Mestre Carlos Aceituno (1961 - 2006). In 2006 Mestre Carlos’ understudy, Anthony Fidel (aka Busca He), became the Artistic Director/Lead Instructor to continue the well-structured Capoeira (Afro-Brazilian martial arts) arts and music programming to youth and adults. Students learn movement, methodology, music, songs, history, and cultural awareness. They are provided with support for a safe place to improve oneself through training while having equitable access regardless of demographics.
Founder, Artistic Director
Portsha Jefferson
Established in 2004 by Artistic Director Portsha Jefferson, Rara Tou Limen has continually offered Bay Area residents, as well as people from all over the United States, the opportunity to experience Haitian music, dance and culture through classes, workshops, performances and educational events in both the United States and in Haiti.
A lover of all forms of dance, Yolande Sterling has been an avid student of Haitian folkloric dance since 2008. She has studied and danced with veteran dancers and educators such as Blanche Brown, Michelle Martin and Portsha Jefferson. Ms. Sterling has traveled to Haiti on several occasions to experience the culture first hand by traveling to various parts of the country as well as learning from dance and song instructors at the Ecole Nationale des Arts (ENARTS).
Ms. Sterling joined Rara Tou Limen (RTL) in January 2014 and has been fortunate enough to travel and perform with the company both in the Bay Area and internationally in Haiti and Montreal Canada. She also participated in the 2017 cultural exchange tour to Havana Cuba where RTL collaborated with a renowned Cuban Folkloric company to explore the connection between Haitian and Cuban-Haitian dance. In 2019, Ms. Sterling had the opportunity to visit Benin West Africa with RTL and witness first hand the connection between the Beninese and Haitian cultures through dance, song and Vodou.
In keeping with her love of folkloric dance, Ms. Sterling has performed with the Afro-Cuban folkloric company Grupo Nago Experimental under the guidance of Artistic Director Temistocles Fuentes Betancourt. She has also studied with and danced in San Francisco Carnaval with Afro-Brazilian dancer/choreography Tania Santiago, Artistic Director of Aguas da Bahia Dance Company. Yolande is passionate about Haitian dance as well as the rhythms and rituals that embody the culture.
Michelle Peacock is originally from Los Angeles, CA and enthusiastically began training 22 years ago in various dance forms. High School is where Michelle was accepted into a prestigious performing arts school, The Los Angeles County High School for the Arts where she studied with various well studied teachers and continued to perfect her skills. After graduating high school she went on to further her training in dance while getting her B.A in Broadcast communications at San Francisco State University.
After graduating college and entering into the work force, dance, her one true love and passion was calling out to her, so she sought out classes until she stumbled upon Portsha’s Haitian dance class on a bright Sunday and thus began her love affair with Haitian dance.
Michelle has been a member of Rara Tou Limen since 2011, where she has engrossed herself into Haitian folklore, with a willingness to continue to train and study as much as she can about Haitian culture through myriads of classes, workshops, performances and traveling to different countries with the company, showcasing the vibrant spirit of the Haitian culture.
“Dance is a conversation between Body and Soul”.
Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and raised in Los Angeles, California, Ms. Nadreau has studied various dance styles from Africa and the diaspora, including Afro Brazilian, Afro house, Waacking, and Haitian folklore. In addition to dance, she has also studied sound design, fashion, and Earth and Environmental Sciences.
Her work has been seen on national TV, in the theater, and featured in music videos.
Halima Marshall is a recent recipient of the 2020 Alliance of California Traditional Arts (ACTA) Apprenticeship with mentor Portsha Jefferson. She was first introduced to Haitian dance at St. Mary’s College in 1995 by Blanche Brown, Haitian dance instructor and director of then Group Petit La Croix. Years later, her desire to learn more technique, rhythms, and the intricacies of their connection led her to Dance Mission in San Francisco where she took classes with instructor Michelle Martin.
In 2007, Halima first performed with Portsha Jefferson at the inception of Rara Tou Limen (RTL) prior to joining the dance company. Since that time she has performed the colorful and emotion-filled storytelling of RTL throughout the Bay Area at San Francisco Carnaval, San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival, Black Choreographers Festival, multiple performances at the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts, the University of Oklahoma for the Neustadt Festival honoring a Haitian literary great, Edwidge Danticat, and internationally with Mapou Ginen Haitian Folkloric Dance Troupe in Montreal, Canada. Halima also celebrates the opportunity to teach dance classes in the Bay Area because of these diverse experiences over the years, her skills as an educator, and, most importantly, because of her love of Haitian dance and culture.
A 2014 cultural exchange trip to Ayiti was the pinnacle of her experiences, as past knowledge was given life through witnessing Vodou on the soil of Ayiti. She brings reverence for the spirit of Vodou and acknowledgement of the fullness of Ayiti’s culture to her own dance and teaching experience.
Abeje Maolud is one of three of Rara Tou Limen’s newest company members, joining the Haitian Folkloric Dance Company in 2018. She hails from the San Francisco Bay Area, where she began her lifelong dance training with notable dance teachers such as Mama Naomi Diouf (of Diamano Coura West African Dance Company) and the late Ms. Alicia Pierce (of Wajumbe Dance Collective).
Since such early exposure to dance, Abeje has embarked on a lifelong journey of studying various forms, locally and abroad, ranging from Tango to Tahitian dance. Her experience includes modern dance techniques, with an emphasis on Dunham Technique, as well as studying and working with The San Francisco Ballet School, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s summer youth program, Ailey Camp, Columbus, Ohio’s Ballet Met, Headlong Dance Theater out of Philadelphia, and such local dance companies as The Zari Le’on Dance Theater and Eloi Movement.
Abeje holds a BA in Dance from Denison University. Her experience extends beyond the velvet curtain to costume design, set design, and stage management.
She believes in the power of the arts to inspire change. In 2013, Valencia co-founded the AI_am project, which explores the application of artificial intelligence in dance. The project has been presented at several international forums, such as TEDxGoteborg in 2015, and premiered its first evening-length work in Budapest and Gothenburg in 2017. Valencia also creates solo works that explore stereotypes and colonial narratives. She has performed extensively in Hungary, Romania, Poland, France, Israel, Sweden, Argentina, and Canada. After a decade in Hungary, Valencia is now based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Asatu Hall is a seasoned performer, choreographer and founding member of Emesè: Messengers of the African Diaspora, a collective of artists founded in 1998 to promote and present the rich cultural traditions of the African Diaspora. Her background in dance incorporates over 25 years of various genres, including Ballet, West African, Congolese, Haitian, and Brazilian.
She has had the honor of studying and performing with a number of master artists in the Bay Area and abroad, in particular, her mentors Mestre Carlos Aceituno founder of Fogo Na Roupa Grupo Carnavalesco Cultural and Regina Califa, Jorge Alabe, Blanche Brown, Titos Sompa, Malonga Casquelourd, Jose Francisco Barroso, Juan De Dios Ramos, Linda Faye Johnson, Isaura Oliveira, and others. She feels blessed and very honored to have the opportunity to deepen her study of Haitian dance, music, and culture with the Rara Tou Limen family. Asatu currently teaches Afro Cuban and Afro Brazilian dance in Oakland and Alameda.
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