Cape Town Minstrel Carnival

The tradition & historical record

The Kaapse Klopse (or simply Klopse), officially named the Cape Town Minstrel Carnival, is a traditionally Cape Coloured minstrel festival that takes place annually on 2 January in Cape Town, South Africa. The festival is also referred to as Tweede Nuwe Jaar (Afrikaans for Second New Year). As many as 13,000 minstrels take to the streets, garbed in bright colours, carrying colourful umbrellas and playing an array of musical instruments. The minstrels are self-organised into klopse ("clubs" in Kaapse Afrikaans, but more accurately translated as troupes in English). The custom has been preserved since the mid-19th century. Under apartheid, the period of government-enforced racial segregation and stratification in South Africa, the festival was known as the Coon Carnival, but local authorities have since renamed the festival the Cape Town Minstrel Carnival as the term coon is widely considered an ethnic slur. There is contention around the continued use of blackface by festival performers. ¹

On the eve of 30 December, people gather in the Bo-Kaap (Malay Quarter in Signal Hill) to await the Tweede Nuwe Jaar (2 January) with the songs of Malay choirs and ghoema drums ushering in the dawn of a New Year. During the 19th century, the New Year was celebrated by the Dutch and was considered to be the biggest annual feast. Slaves would get a day off on 2 January and were allowed to celebrate in their own manner. Slavery was officially abolished in the Cape on 1 December 1834. The Tweede Nuwe Jaar became a celebration that united the "creole culture" in Cape Town. It is estimated that the first carnival troupe was organised in 1887. In the apartheid years, the Cape Minstrels sang songs like "Dis'n nuwe jaar" ("It's a new year"), and many local songs, which were more true to the Cape Province and the local milieu. Modern Cape Minstrel tradition was influenced by the visit to the Cape by American minstrels. Old Cape minstrels, such as "The Ethiopians", had their own collection of Dutch and American songs. These minstrels used to parade the streets of Cape Town and serenade the locals with their songs. An etching by Heinrich Egersdorfer in 1884 depicted those regular marches by the local chapter of the Salvation Army, which included many of the locals, could have contributed to the style of the marching that the Klopse displays today. In 1862, the then-internationally renowned Christy's Minstrels visited the Cape from the United States and in 1890 Orpheus McAdoo's Virginia Jubilee Singers performed in Cape Town. The Christy's Minstrels were white men and women who had blackened their faces with burnt cork to impersonate the African-American slaves. ¹

The Group Areas Act of 1966 declared District Six a whites only area resulting in approximately 60 000 residents being evicted and moved to parts of the Cape Flats, such as Manenberg and Mitchells Plain. The implementation of the Group Areas Act resulted in communities losing their sense of belonging to the communities they grew up in because of the forced removals. The Minstrel performances were spread across the Cape Peninsula to various areas. In 1967, the Carnival was banned from its home at the Green Point stadium. In 1968 there were no Minstrels parading in the Cape Town CBD. Transportation to attend rehearsals became an additional challenge and expense for the different competing minstrel groups. During the 1970s, the traffic by laws and the "Illegal Gathering Act" were used to place additional challenges on the minstrel festival organizers. From 1971, Athlone Stadium was used for the 'non-white' spectators. In 1977, all Minstrel marches were forbidden in any part of Cape Town and as a result people lost interest in watching the parade. The event was moved between various stadiums in order to keep it alive until 1989, when the event returned to its original route: from District Six to the Green Point stadium. ¹

Tweede Nuwe Jaar ("Second New Year") is a day that is unique to Cape Town and stems from practices associated with slavery, and its history is linked with the Coon Carnival. In the mid-nineteenth century, the Cape slaves were given a day off from their duties on 2 January every year. During this alternative New Year celebration, the slaves would dress up as minstrels and dance rhythmically to the sounds of banjos, guitars, ghoema drums, whistles, trombones and tubas. Tweede Nuwe Jaar is a celebration of a community's survival. It illustrates the continuity between its past, present and future. The now deceased iconic musician Taliep Petersen, is claimed to have said of Tweede Nuwe Jaar celebrations, "Dis onse dag" ("It is our day"). It is a day when the local working class community which survived slavery, segregation and Apartheid celebrates its existence and perseverance. ¹

In 1880–1890, celebration bands and groups linked as societies with sports clubs with distinguishable emblems and dress paraded through the city and suburbs on New Year's Eve. These societies prepared special costumes for New Year's and these became a crucial part of the event. More than 60 minstrel troupes, some a thousand strong have been known to participate in the marches. Minstrel troupes are fiercely competitive and the preparations leading towards the parade, costumes and performances are kept as secrets until the big reveal on the day. They compete for trophies such as the "Champion of Champions award". This award has been won by the Pennsylvanians for 10 years in succession. The minstrel troupes give a sense of pride and community to the group members. The "ghoema" drum is the common thread that binds together all the music of the carnival. Until mid-1900s, competitions were organised by individual promoters. Boards appeared and disappeared – "Cape Peninsula Coon Carnival Board", "Western Province Jubilee Carnival Board" (Jimmy WG Allen), "Cape Western Coon Carnival Board" (directed by Sonny Loyd). The majority of the troupes are represented by the Kaapse Klopse Karnaval Association which is one of the break-away Associations from the Kaapse Karnaval ("Cape Carnival") Association. Today, the Cape Town Minstrels Carnival Association oversees the organisation of the Minstrel Carnival. ¹

The music associated with minstrel history and Tweede Nuwe Jaar was influenced by a variety of sources. In the 17th and 18th centuries, slaves were sent to the Cape of Good Hope from Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, India and East Africa (Madagascar), creating a melting pot of culture and influence. The British garrisons of the era influenced the marching processions of the minstrel troupes and a substantial collection of songs draw their origins from the Netherlands. The Cape slaves together with the local Khoisan population were known to sing in choirs as part of the celebrations. They also watched the colonial troops parade in Cape Town while singing "God Save the Queen". Traces of African, Asian and European music can be heard in the minstrel music. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Kaapse Klopse”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

Cape Town Minstrel Carnival is annual festival, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 1 external register, which can be verified through the citation. ²