Owusu Bamfo, Master Drummer, Versatile Dancer- Choreographer Dies at 62

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr. (Atumpan News Agency)

When he hugged and kissed his wife, Charlotte, and daughter, Allyson, goodbye and they all departed for church that Sunday, March 8, 2009, none of the three, including the man of the house, knew that this would be the final parting of the ways between husband and wife as well as father and daughter.

The three fairly regularly attended services together; and so this was not the very first of such affectionate rituals immediately after which the man of the house and his family went to and returned from church all safe and sound. And, indeed, safe and sound had they returned, as wife and daughter, as usual, took the lead into their 13th-floor apartment while the man of the house found convenient and legal parking space for his blood-red 1994-model Nissan Pathfinder.

On March 8, though, it was his newly-purchased 7-seater 2005-model Nissan Pathfinder in which he had driven his family to and from church. The older model, having broken its chassis, was slated for charitable donation. It was parked on the alternate side of the street and needed re-parking, if he was not to be ticketed early Monday morning, should he fail to move it out of its current location on time. He had finished parking “old faithful” and was laboring across Beach Channel Drive into his apartment complex, walking-stick in hand (having suffered a massive stroke a decade earlier and endured a spinal-cord surgery as recently as last year) when he was brutally struck by a speeding Cadillac SUV, as the police described it.

Eyewitnesses and traffic cops who arrived on the scene shortly thereafter registered the time of the tragic event at 7:41pm. It was promptly classified as a hit-and-run case, for the driver had failed to stop. He would be arrested nearly forty-eight hours later.

At press time (4/27/09), the alleged hit-and-run suspect, identified by police as a Mr. Richard Parker, 53, an African-American resident of Beach 43rd Street, a location not quite far from the scene of the accident, was reportedly being held on a $ 5,000.00 bond and the preliminary charge of leaving the scene of an accident, with further charges in the offing, in view of the fact of the victim lapsing into a coma and dying some eleven days later.

Speaking to Atumpan News Agency, almost in a choking voice, Mr. Kofi Mahama who had known the deceased for more than 40 years, including their years together as students and instructors at the University of Ghana’s School for the Performing Arts – the erstwhile School of Music and Drama – described his “best friend” as a versatile dancer-drummer and choreographer who always brought the best out of his friends, colleagues and students.

“We did a lot of things together. For instance, we both founded the Kotoko Dance Company, together with our friend and colleague Ishmael Abbey,” Mr. Mahama recalled and added, “We also got married at about the same time.”

Born Alexander Kofi Owusu Bamfo, to Barima Yaw Owusu (deceased), a former transport employee with the Ghana Education Service (GES), and Ms. Victoria Afaribea at Akyem-Asafo, on May 10, 1946, the oldest of 12 children attended the Akyem-Asafo Presbyterian Primary School from 1952 to 1958; and the Akyem-Asafo Middle Boys’ Boarding School (a coed institution that maintained a strictly day system for girls) between 1959 and 1963.

His keen interest in the preservation and promotion of African culture prompted the young Alex Bamfo to enroll into the University of Ghana’s School for the Performing Arts program, with the spirited and avuncular encouragement of Mr. S. K. Darko, manager of the printing press at Legon’s African Studies Institute and a native of Akyem-Asafo. He would graduate with a diploma – or the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree in an American university – in the performing arts and serve an instructional stint at the University of Ghana’s Institute of African Studies from which job he resigned in 1974, the very year that Mr. Bamfo arrived in the United States in search of the proverbial greener pasture.

In his case, the foregoing entailed the promotion of African culture through the performing arts. He would, together with his close associates, largely Messrs. Mahama and Abbey, establish the OdehyeE Dance Troupe, renting instructional and rehearsal space at Brooklyn’s Fort Green Senior Citizens’ Home, located on Fulton Street, for the purpose. The troupe would widely perform at funerals and other momentous festivities, such as royal durbars, throughout the New York Metropolitan region and beyond over the years.

As a leading member of the Legon Dance Ensemble, of the University of Ghana’s School for the Performing Arts, Alexander Bamfo toured Senegal in 1966, during the first Global Festival of Black Arts and Culture; and in 1968, the ensemble performed at the Mexican Olympic Games. That same year, as Ms. Margaret Antwi, a member of the group and a longtime classmate and fellow Akyem-Asafo native, wistfully recalled, the ensemble arrived in the United States and performed to capacity audiences at the world-famous Madison Square Garden, New York City, as well as such American states as Ohio, Illinois and California. The ensemble also toured Italy, the former Soviet Union and Britain.

Recalling some of the legion activities undertaken by both the Kotoko Dance Company and the OdehyeE Dance Troupe by phone from East Orange, New Jersey, Mr. Mahama poignantly observed, “As performance artists and promoters of African music and dance, we were very successful, although we did not make a lot of money.”

At press time (4/27/09), funeral arrangements were scheduled as follows: The mortal remains of Mr. Alexander Kofi Owusu Bamfo will be laid in state for viewing at the Bethel Reformed Presbyterian Church, located at Flatbush Ave. and Church Street, Brooklyn, New York, on Friday, May 15, 2009 from 4pm-7pm, with funeral service being held at the same venue from 7pm -9pm. A traditional African ritual celebration of the life of Mr. Alexander Kofi Owusu Bamfo will follow shortly thereafter at the Nazareth High School at 457 East 57th Street, Brooklyn (between Clarendon Road and Ave. B on 58 Street).

Handling the funeral arrangements is the Frank R. Bell Funeral Home, located at 536 Sterling Place, Brooklyn, New York (Corner of Classon Ave.) at 718-399-2500.

The mortal remains of Mr. Alexander Kofi Owusu Bamfo will be flown to Ghana for final funerary rites and burial at his birthplace of Akyem-Asafo on Saturday, June 6, 2009 at the Akyem-Asafo Presbyterian Church Cemetery, followed by a memorial and thanksgiving service at the Akyem-Asafo Presbyterian Church on Sunday, June 7, 2009 at 9:30 am.

Besides, his wife, Ms. Charlotte Opoku, and daughter, Allyson Bamfo, Mr. Alexander Kofi Owusu Bamfo is survived by two other daughters, namely, Ms. Linda Bamfo, of Wallingford, Connecticut, and Ms. Florence Una Opoku, of Meriden, Connecticut, and two grandchildren, several siblings and cousins, as well as a host of nieces, nephews and other relatives. ###