Dancing in and escaping from wartime Liberia

June is National Immigrant Heritage Month. And that brings us to another legacy Bay Area arts institution was founded by immigrants from west Africa: Diamano Coura West African Dance Company in Oakland . Founded by award winning artistic directors, Zakarya and Naomi Diouf, They've been performing and teaching dance from Western and Central Africa since 1975. Over the decades, Diamano Coura dancers have hailed from countries like Senegal, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, the Democratic Republic of Congo… Next we’ll share one of our favorite stories, from my first years at KALW - about one of their dancers who immigrated from Liberia. Karsumo Massaquoi loved, and lived, to dance. But, he almost didn’t survive to do either.

You can listen to Dancing in and escaping from wartime Liberia online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Dancing in and escaping from wartime Liberia is an episode from Crosscurrents by KALW.

This episode is 09:31 long.

This episode was published on Jun 8, 2026.

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