“It is us” An Exploration of “Race” and Place in the Minstrel Carnival Nadia Davids

Performing Presence Between Christmas and New Year’s Day the streets of Cape Town are filled with the music and movement of the Cape Town Minstrel Carnival. It is a weeklong season of performance and celebration, the culmination of a year spent rehearsing songs, choreographing dances, and planning costumes in the klopse kamers1 scattered throughout the outlying . The Carnival’s identity is entangled with the spatial and historical dimensions of urban Cape Town, and it performs again and again the city’s past dislocations and its geographies of loss. If the parameters of the city are determined by the extraordinary beauty of its mountain ranges and coastline, then its center, a bricolage of colonial buildings and statues, occasional skyscrapers, boutique shops, restaurants, street vendors, flower sellers, new and old immigrant communities,

1. Klopse kamers (club rooms) are the headquarters or rehearsal rooms for minstrel troupes (see Martin 1999).

TDR: The Drama Review 57:2 (T218) Summer 2013. ©2013 86 New York University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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divided city” (Field, Meyer, and Swanson 2007:5) all collude to ensure that Black collude to ensure that Swanson 2007:5) all and Meyer, (Field, and divided city”

(in an amalgam of the practices of many South African researchers, among them Zimitri Erasmus, Gabeba Gabeba Erasmus, Zimitri them among researchers, African South many of practices the of amalgam an (in con- its of reminder a as “race” word the around marks quotation use (1) to Gqola) Dineo Pumla and Baderoon and white, black, terms structionthe for century19th the in marks quotation use not (2) to pseudoscientists; by and instability, flux, of state constant a in are that identities social for signifiers them as understanding coloured, clas- not citizens all to referring of means a as “Black” word the capitalize occasionally to (3) and re-imagination; of polit- act last This Malay). Cape coloured, Indian, apartheid under white as as sified classified those (including inclusive and productive, reactionary, Movement’s Consciousness Black the from proceeds punctuation ical under living color of people to refer to Capetonians” “Black term the use I Similarly, blackness. around rhetoric apartheid.and colonialism by settled was that Hill Signal of slopes the on situated area residential a is Cape”) the (“Above Bo-Kaap The and neighborhood Muslim largely a remained has It Proclamation. Emancipation the after slaves Muslim freed for point meeting major a remains It Quarter. apartheidits Malay the appellation, by to referred sometimes is the in buried is Cape, the at Islam of founder the Guru, Tuan celebrations. Carnival Minstrel Town Cape all Bo-Kaap’s cemetery. Writing about “race” in is a sensitive, complex, and necessarily political undertaking. political necessarily and complex, have I sensitive, a is Africa South in “race” about Writing The celebrations begin on Christmas Eve with performances from brass band Christmas on Christmas Eve with performances The celebrations begin 3. 2. choirs, which are followed on New Year’s Eve by the Malay night choirs (Nagtroepe) who Eve by the Malay Year’s on New which are followed choirs, the streets of the Bo-Kaap, slowly process through parade through the city center on 2 January. The Carnival’s origins are often conflated withThe Carnival’s center on 2 January. parade through the city the abolition of slavery in of the mid- to late 1800s that marked the 1 December processions and cer former slaves in 1838, the apprenticeship system of indentured 1834 and the end of tainly, descriptions of those events echo in the sounds and meanings of the Carnival today. An meanings of the Carnival today. of those events echo in the sounds and descriptions tainly, 1834 edition of the article in the December South African Commercial Advertiser during the promenaded the streets and both sexes, of all ages ‘Apprentices’ “large bodies of the demeanour many of them attended by a band of amateur musicians; their day and the night, article an 1886 Cape Times Five decades later, (in Martin 1999:33). was orderly and respectful” most fan- “frivolous groups of Coloured people [...] dressed described a more ebullient scene: (in instruments” and headed by blowers of wind and players of string carrying guys, tastically, article written in 1885 illustrates some Cape Times Another Bickford-Smith [1995] 2003:298). anniversary of was the “Yesterday settler populations: of the frictions between the ex-slave and , Journal Theatre African the South and Guardian, TheatreMarket been staged at The plays have (London), and the Centre Southbank the (Johannesburg), City) York Lab (New Playwright’s Project Women’s She was a part of the (Amsterdam). Theatre Frascati in 2012. [email protected] at the Ledig House for 2008–2010 and was a writer in residence Figure 1. (facing page) At the Tweede Nuwe Jaar parade in the Bo-Kaap neighborhood of Cape Town, Town, Cape of neighborhood Bo-Kaap the in parade Jaar Nuwe Tweede the At page) (facing 1. Figure Yazeed by (Photo 2012. January 2 costumes, their match that masks painted multicolored participantswear Kamaldien) Yazeed courtesyKamaldien; of Mary at Queen University lecturers She and scholar. African theatre-maker is a South Davids Nadia performance, the intersections between and teaches around she writes, researches, of London where in articles appeared have cultural practice, and political intervention. Her

Capetonians’ struggle for visibility, for presence in the city, remains a central one. Julian Jonker a central one. remains in the city, for presence struggle for visibility, Capetonians’ racially and buildings, its topography, that the city’s landscape, this when he writes reflects on the “reflect and effect that continues to “wordless conspiracy” exist in a inscribed cartography, The Carnival (2005:187). was strictly legislated” until the early 1990’s, racial segregation that into focus. annually, brings these tensions, foreign nationals and street dwellers, renders it a place (as Yazir Henri and Heidi Grunebaum Henri and Heidi Yazir place (as renders it a and street dwellers, foreign nationals its his- divisions, its calculated long war with itself”“at old segregations, Its put it) (2005:3). “a culturally once ability to remain at and its and manual labor, “race” of torical conflation diverse Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DRAM_a_00262 by guest on 27 September 2021 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DRAM_a_00262 by guest on 27September 2021

88 Nadia Davids Bo-Kaap. That contentiouscentralimage adjunct oftourism” ([1970]1998:7)andameansofcontesting thegrowinggentrificationof Capetonian while insistingonanannualreckoningwiththepresentandpast. and thewaysprocessionfuseshistoricalculturalfragmentsintoanuneasyinheritance postcolonial city, thepostapartheidcity, themanysilenceswithinnoiseofprocession, amnesia. These questionsandtheCarnivalthatpromptsthemofferuswaystothinkabout and patternsofinterfacebetweenperformanceculturalmemoryitscompanion, cultural enous identities;processesoftrans-Atlanticculturalexchange, appropriation, andownership; the issuesofwillfulracistcaricaturing;problematicpublicenactmentscreolizedandindig- onto theCapetoniancarnivallandscapehasraiseddifficult, politicallychargedquestionsaround international debate. Ithas. The superimpositionofthisNorth American theatricalcharacter Town MinstrelCarnivalhasnotbeenasourceofdivisiveandprolongedlocal, national, and Schechner 2004). tural memoryofslaveryanditssubsequentprocessescreolization “interculturalism” (see enous identityformation;ratheritexistsonacontinuumwiththelivedexperienceandcul- Carnival’s useofblackfacedoesnotindicateanexplicitinvestmentinquestionssettler/indig- fundamentally differentpolitical, historical, andculturalexperiences. The Cape Town Minstrel while thetwocommunitiessharedanattractiontoblackface, theywereattractionsshapedby indigenous Xhosaidentitiesandto “preserve theboundariesofracialdifference” (2013:67). But white settlersmobilizedblackface’slessonsofracisminordertonegotiateanxietiesaround Minstrel ShowinPre-IndustrialSouth Africa.” Thelwell carefullyunpacksthewayinwhich Chinua Thelwell’s articleinthisissueofTDR, youngmenmustblackentheirfaces’: The “‘The group inSouth Africa toabsorb, reiterateandreformulate American , asshownin American blackfaceminstrel. The ex-slavepopulationofurbanCape Town wasnottheonly its primarymotif, anadoptiveresponsetothetouringgroupsofmid-late1800s, isthe Heyningen, andBickford-Smith2004:108). indifferent engagingintheirdailypursuitsandcaresofacquisitionasusual” (in Worden, van population oftheCapeappearedtostreamcountry. [...O]nlythewhitepopulationseemed holiday. Itiscelebratedwithlivelypartiesthatoftenlastanentireweek. [...] The entirecoloured itor [...]describedhowthedaywasmarked ‘by formerslavesandtheirdescendantsasapublic ­accompanied withhideousnoise” (inBickford-Smith1994:298). Later, in1856, “a Swedishvis- appreciations oftheblessingsfreedombyallthatwasexasperatinginwayprocessions, the emancipationofslavesinthiscolony1834. Someoftheirdescendantsexpressed tion totheapparentlystable around belongingtotheapparentlyinterstitialracialcategory ofcoloured, orasaracistreac- ers alike. Itisoftenreadasanenactmentoftheparticipants’ racialanxieties(ananxietylocated has beenknowntoelicitethicalandintellectualshuddersfrom localandinternationalobserv- musicians andperformerseveryyear. Itistheimagethatdrawsspectators’primaryfocusand the troublingyetpersistentself-descriptionas “coon” isreplicatedbythousandsofparticipant The character, replete withthegarishpaintedface, brightsatintailcoats, swaggeringsteps, and texualized implications ofracismintheir performance ofblackface. InherarticleinaSouth African online all things American. and theydonotaccountforthe ex-slavecommunity’shistoricalstrategytoaffiliateitselfwith tured cultural, historical, andspatialmeaningsidentitiesproducedthrough theCarnival, is, perhaps, some truth toboththeseclaims, buttheydonotallowforthe multiplicityoftex- Today’s CarnivalexistsinavexedentanglementwithlayersofSouth African Which isnottoimplythatthepresenceofblackfaceminstrelmaskwithinCape Today theCarnivalcontinuestocentralizenarrativeofslaverywithonekeydifference: Carnival participantsoftenclaim toneitherreadnorconsciouslyreiteratethehistorical — — seems onthesurfacetobeprocession’srichestandmostcompelling story. histories andhasbecome, toborrowaphrasefromDerek Walcott, both “an — and thereforethreatening — the minstrel, appropriated, reconceived, and recon- — “racial” categoryofblack). There — ­ particularly Cape Town Minstrel Carnival 89 - - a discussion of “race.” Yet Matthews, Matthews, Yet “race.” a discussion of — or at the very least accommodate —

In these statements, the performance of “race” through blackface appears to be dwarfed through blackface appears to “race” the performance of In these statements, In 2011, Anwar Naghia (the chairperson of the Anti-Gentrification Front) drew the histor Anti-Gentrification Front) of the Anwar Naghia (the chairperson In 2011, These assertions are fascinating, though historically misinformed. Blackface became a part of though historically misinformed. fascinating, These assertions are “Race” and Memory “Race” as being The Carnival (and by extension the figure of the Cape Minstrel) is often understood It is coloured identity and coloured cultural practices. or synonymous with, emblematic of, of responses an assumed cultural and political conflation that is met with a complicated series Both (by participants and observers alike) that alternately deny and affirm the association. ical struggle for the city center into a contemporary focus when he insisted that the Carnival ical struggle for the city center into a contemporary the growing power of private property development: was a means of contesting and disrupting people but the city belongs to us and not to them” “They want to make this city for privileged (in Mackay 2012). the Carnival as a creative articulation of a creolized by the immense political significance of space; as a a singular force that contests and occupies circumscribed public slave experience, dislocation and dispossession brought about by the means of mourning and remembering the and as a political and cultural mechanism that pits the Act of 1950; Areas ­apartheid-era Group the enactment of Cape black- An exploration of disenfranchised against institutionalized power. and place reveals the Cape Minstrel Carnival “race” face that moves through the categories of a reposi- but also (and perhaps more meaningfully) as not merely an expression of racial anxiety, Town expression of the history of the city of Cape a creative tory for the Cape slave experience, “speaking begins once properly excavated, Africa where, and another site in postapartheid South Carnival is an instance wherein blackface is invoked as a (Gqola 2010:2). and silencing ends” racist caricature. not a powerfully transformative mask, Stemmet, and Sardien appear interested not in the problematic enactment of a racialized iden- and Sardien appear interested not in the problematic enactment of a racialized Stemmet, in which that identity is erased through a painted tity but in the invention of a parallel existence in the 1980s Similarly, yet temporary freedom. hard-won, mask: a mask that allows for a giddy, through which to reflect on the social cohesion of the Carnival was often mobilized as a prism forced nonwhites to move out beginning in 1966, before the apartheid government of District Six Ex-resident intracultural community. to recollect about a functional intraracial, about the sense of community and the pleasure Gadija Jacobs reminisced in a 1990 interview because never forget, That days I those were wonderful days. Oh, “Oh, the Carnival offered: It was in Hanover Street from the start at the happy. were so We we had a lot of pleasure man. (in Jeppie 1990:72). Castle Bridge right up to the Catholic Church” - of slavery and its contempo Carnival’s history instead the emphasizing “race,” formance of Minstrel Town of the Cape the CEO Melvin Matthews, In 2003, elements. rary Bacchanalian when he and blackface altogether racism, “race,” between dismissed the connectivity Carnival, [...] or white or whatever. it green or blue or red you can paint not about blackface, “It’s said, troupe cap- the Stemmet, more recently Richard And 2012). (in Mackay the race” It’s not about that Carnival is fundamen- suggested Crooning Minstrels, tain of the Shoprite Pennsylvanians in the year is now behind you. the heartache and pain you went through “All tally about escape: (in crazy” People painted their faces and went everyone partied. Year, New When it came at the response to Sardien framed the Carnival as a leader Moegamat Rushdien Troupe Mackay 2012). ‘klopse’ come from the time of the slaves. “The tradition of the saying, the experience of slavery, you’ll go crazy. once a year, let out once a year and if you only get out The slaves were only (in Mackay 2012). and could do what they wanted” danced People jumped, (Martin 1999) and it is diffi- many years after slavery had ended the Emancipation Procession Africa that event in South conversation about any major historical-cultural cult to conceive of a does not centralize newspaper, Kara Mackay offers several examples in which participants decentralize the per participants decentralize examples in which Mackay offers several Kara newspaper, Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DRAM_a_00262 by guest on 27 September 2021 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DRAM_a_00262 by guest on 27September 2021

90 Nadia Davids (like Black, White, and Asian) was, andinmanywayscontinuestobe, shapedbytheseforces. of Europeancolonialismandthenunderapartheid. The apartheid-eracategoryofColoured strained bythehistoricalinventionof “race” asatoolofsocialengineering, firstundertheaegis in South Africa. SocialidentitiesinSouth Africa arealmostalwaysboundby “race” andcon - tions) arepredicatedontheveryspecificwaysinwhich “race” wasinventedandimplemented ­arguments (which, asIdiscusslater, tendtopatternthemselvesalongclassand “race” posi-

symbolizes freedomandpossibility? also, insomesense, theflagofanothercountrythatinimaginationrecentlyfreedslaves in thefaceofdanger, tocode-switch, topasssecretmessages, todisappearbehindamaskthatis injustice andsurvival?Betweenacceptancerebellion? What doesitmeantosubvertidentity processes ofsubversionandsurvivalinpost-slaveryCape Town. What isthespacebetween The Carnivalisaproductivespaceinwhichtothinkthrough “race” practicesandtounpack became coloured, [...]” (1996:211). seven Chinesebecamewhite, oneGriquabecamewhite, 40colouredsbecameblack, 666blacks , 506colouredsbecamewhite, twowhitesbecameMalay, nineIndiansbecamewhite, Cape notes that1,600peoplesuccessfullypetitionedtochangetheirracialidentityin1986, quotinga was bestillustratedby “the individualswhoeveryyearsucceededin ‘changing’ color”;Raiskin mixed ancestry)and ‘Asiatics.’” category wassubdividedintosevenfurthercategoriesincluding ‘Cape Coloured’(personof ined assomehowstable, fixed, andauthentic. JudithRaiskinwritesthatin “1959the ‘coloured’ (i.e., black African) and “White” (i.e., Europeansettler) nosed byaprocessofeliminationbutalsobounditbetweentwo “racial” categories nor “White” (Pickel1997:5). Itnotonlyorientedcolourednessassomethingthatwasdiag- (re)inventions of “race.” The actdefinedacolouredcitizenassomeonewhowasneither “Bantu” (SouthAfrica.info 2011). million colouredpeopleinSouth Africa, theequivalentofninepercenttotalpopulation gories of African, Coloured, Indian/Asian, and White) tellsusthatthereareoverfourandahalf tinues topatternitselfalongapartheidgroupings, demarcatingitscitizensintothe “racial” cate- 6. 5. 4. marginality, and dislocation that slaves at the Cape must have felt. guages, and customs that suggest not only bondage and enforced heterogeneity but also the terror, bewilderment, exchange, appropriation, discontinuity, and loss 2003). (Vink Markus Vink offers a litany of place names, lan- and in a collection of South African identities formed under and through a process of traumatic cultural rupture, ity, resulting in one of the most culturally heterogeneous regions between on earth the early 1700s and late 1800s Asia, Southeast Asia, the southern Philippines, Europe, and Sub-Saharan Africa into enforced and close proxim- The Dutch East Indian slave system drew a multitude ofpeople from East Africa, the Mascarene Islands, South and bythe Carnival articulating as an archive.history that need to be read,to be lifted, and these this encryptions can be done by connecting the Carnival to its own sheltered and shielded from surveillance” (2002:148). It is precisely these veilings within the Carnival that need nonverbal, and extralinguistic modes of communication where subversive meanings and utopian yearnings can be which many people live demands that we pay attention to to indirect,messages that are coded and encrypted; their backs, cover their tracks, suck up their feelings, and veil their meanings. The state of emergency under Dwight Conquergood understood these difficulties, these refusals: “[O]ppressed peoplemust watch everywhere ken, written and thought about” (2001:65). “commonsense understandings within which social relations in the society are approached, comprehended, spo- have “produced types of identities,” inscribing them with “everyday meanings” which in turn have crafted the Africa is indicative of the “discursive power of these collective identities” and that these same racial classifications Thiven Reddy suggests that the continued emphasis on racial and ethnic identities in a postapartheid South In 1950, theapartheid-eraPopulationRegistration Act waspassedandwithitaseriesof The South African government’s2011midyearpopulationcensus(which, distressingly, con- Times article thatabsurdlyliststhedetailsofchanges, including, “Nine whitesbecame 6 That thesewerefictitious, duplicitouspoliticaldesignations, 5 — that theapartheidgovernmentimag- — “Bantu” 4

Cape Town Minstrel Carnival 91 - - - - In her 7 and that these things occur at the and that these things — 8

It is essential to emphasize that I am not conflating creolization with the lived experience of being classified classified being of experience lived the with creolization conflating not am I that emphasize to essential is It - cre of process a through formed were identities social African South many that argue would I though coloured, but postcolonialism of a legacy not important is was hybridity which in a context in differentiation This olization. cul- “coloured specifically a of notion the resist I addition, In 1990. until up legislated was that something rather danger- yet easy an is Africa, particularly ethnic identities, supportingof think that I South in the project ture”; racisms. replicated and reductions limiting of pitfalls the of full thing, ous destabilizes She this. suggests also creolization of processes African South around work (2004) Nuttall’s Sarah instead offering creolization, with chime to out singled be can identity coloured or colouredness that notion the traverse that identities creolized with replete is Africa South that suggests that one reading, expansive more far a Nuttall phenomenon, national a as creolization of instances African South situating In categorization. “racial” to refusing of work political the vital does so doing in and “colouredness” with creolization conflating resists “specialness” intrinsic identifying as is positioned “colouredness” which patterns in racial and racist old ­reiterate and “otherness.” mances that may be embodied in a multiplicity of repertoires. In this sense, creolization is In this sense, of repertoires. mances that may be embodied in a multiplicity (2004:734) first and foremost a practice. , and that, and that, , the practice is to be found in the doing, Sarah Nuttall maintains that creolization cultural traf- as recent studies are showing, even within this most violent of systems, Yet, “resistance,” does not foreclose possibilities of therefore, The notion itself, [...] fic occurs. perfor It signals a register of actions and nor does it deny the material fact of subjection. Colouredness and coloured identity are often positioned in literature as being not merely identity are often positioned in literature Colouredness and coloured Coloured by History, Shaped by Place (2001a) by Shaped History, by collection Coloured seminal edited Zimitri Erasmus’s 7. 8. introduction, she invokes Edouard Glissant’s understanding of the creole strategy of “diver strategy of of the creole Glissant’s understanding she invokes Edouard introduction, of cultural formation) and of traumatic of a violent beginning, necessary forgetting (the sion” dark- all its complicated with that beginning, of returning to (the importance “entanglements” as admittedly (perhaps irrevo- and asks us to consider coloured identities ness and difficulty) She speaks of fragments and agency. but nonetheless teeming with creativity “marginal” cably) complicity in oppression and subju- of of cultural loss and new formations, and fragmentation, challenge I would like to take It is Erasmus’s “cornered community.” and of Glissant’s gation, to look beyond the minstrel “coloured,” the international recoil at the term to think beyond up, of a creolized experience; one the Carnival as an embodied expression to think through mask, and exchange mimicry, migration, that understands trauma, intersections of loss and survival. intersections of loss and getting. Zoe Wicomb lamented the absence of an articulated and known history of slavery, not- history of slavery, the absence of an articulated and known lamented Wicomb Zoe getting. [...The] only sources or songs has been retained. stories, “nothing by way of folk-tales, ing that the period of the Dutch East India company are the records of the Court of Justice covering about Cape slave recent scholarship has uncovered new ways of thinking Yet (1998:97). rule” and Pumla Dineo Gqola (2010) encour Gabeba Baderoon (2004), Erasmus (2001a), memory. the process of on the framing of cultural fragments, age an emphasis on the excavation of those memories and on the understanding that slave creolization as a strategy of creative resistance, 2000). (Nzegwu that do not easily give up their story” “have been carefully preserved in modes and movement is one such mode; it embodies a partic- The Carnival and its repertoire of music is “history” doing so reframes and recodifies the way ular history through performance and in traditionally recorded. creativity under conditions of marginality” “cultural she does not read this like Erasmus, from violation: from abuse, (Erasmus 2001b:16) as indicating an escape locked between two stable racial categories but also located in a “crisis” between shame and for “crisis” a stable racial categories but also located in locked between two - “creoliza in which cultural identities identities as creolized think about coloured invites us to (2001b:16). conditions of marginality” creativity under “cultural as is positioned tion”

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92 Nadia Davids emancipatory yearning. it isanoptionalmask, lessanenactmentofaracistcaricaturethanformescapeand understanding andacceptanceoftheparticipants’explanationhowblackfacefunctions imprint oftheKhoi, theDutch, andthosefromtheIndonesianarchipelago;throughan ticipants astheymovethroughthecitystreets;inmusicthatbearstraceablecultural about howthedemographicsofparticipantsandimaginative dimensionsoftheCarnival District Six, carnivalmusicians Willie Jales, RobertSithole, andMacMackenzie reminisced dominantly throughitsmanyabsences. landscape isnowcharacterizedalmostexclusivelybyitsnothingness, itspresencedefinedpre- troupes stillusethedestroyedneighborhoodasastartingpoint, asaplaceoforigin, thoughthe of thevastemptinessDistrictSix, andfromthereit charts whatremainsoftheoldroute. The thousands, waitingtobebusedintothecity. The processionstartsonKeizergracht, attheedge the rehearsalroomsofCapeFlats of homesontheslopinghillsandwide, generousstreets oftheBo-Kaap. They begininsteadin Wale Street, towardanaudiencegatheredontheflat-roofedhousesandbrightlypainted­ Street, through Adderly Street, downDarlingStreet, roundtheSlaveLodge, andup, upto once-overcrowded, trellisedbuildingsofDistrictSixandmeanderfromthechaosHanover and socialupheavalofapartheid-eraforcedremovals. The troupesnolongerassembleinthe havechangedoverthelast60years,2 January transformedbytheexclusionarycartographies peoples, creatingaperformanceofcreolizedidentity. This, then, iscreativityatthe margins. an actofcultural “merging” thatestablishednewlysharedritualsandtraditionsfordisplaced bonding ritualinwhichreligiousandculturaldifferenceswerenotflattenedbutreimagined ness madepossiblebyasharedslavepast. The Carnival, therefore, wasanex-slave­ incorporation ofbothChristianandMuslimCapetoniansindicatesabroadersocialconscious- “in themouthofslaves” (Gqola2010:130). Vivian Bickford-Smith suggeststhattheCarnival’s Malaysia (Martin1999), andthelyricsthemselvesaremostlyin , thelanguageformed rhythms hasitsrootsinindigenous African (possiblyKhoi)cultures;andthedrumsofJavaor nederlandsliedgies andMuslim ratiep performances;the ghoema drumusedtobeatoutthesongs’ resides ahistoryofcreolization. The ghoemaliedjies(originalCreolesongs)areablendofDutch depends notonverbalexplanationbutphysicalillustration, andwithinthislanguageofthebody demonstrated andlearnedthroughemulationthroughouttheyear. Itisaformoflearningthat generational andcollectiveparticipation:themusic, steps, andgesturesoftheminstrelsare Denis-Constant Martin’sthatmyinterestslie: The Carnivalisarepertoiresustainedthrough Nuttall’s language 10. the hospitalityoffriendsandneighbors. the streetsofBo-Kaap, movingfromhousetohouse, singingcarolsandpartakingintafel, as the “Big Days.” The annualcyclebeginsonChristmasEve, whenthenightchoirstravel In Cape Town, thedaysofprocession, feasting, drinking, dancing, andmusic-makingareknown The Carnival andDistrictSix Place to theperformanceasaculturalarchive, 9. It isnotjusttheroutethathaschangedasaresultofremovals. As formerresidentsof The Carnival’sperformanceof “race” andplacecanbestbelocatedinthebodiesofpar “Tafel” is Afrikaans for “table” and refers to the table of snacks and refreshments for the singers and dancers. edge” (2003:20). movement, dance, singing and reproduction of knowledge through transmission as “an gestures, orature, embodied memory-performances, finds a natural fit withThis history Diana Taylor’s configuration of “the repertoire” as a process of the production — “embodied,” “actions,” and “repertoires” — in short, all those acts usually thought of in as short, ephemeral, non-reproducible knowl- — 10 9 those dustyghettosofexile anditisbetweenhertheorizing, Erasmus’s, and The processionsthatfollowonNew Year’s Eveand

— speaks toperformanceand — and thengatherbythe community’s stoeps — that - Cape Town Minstrel Carnival 93 - - meaning and leads the troupe from from troupe the leads and — but also the mohawked, mohawked, but also the 12 These musicians described the described the These musicians 11 perhaps a remnant of militaryof remnant a perhaps parades — for a transvestite or cross-dresser who is tasked with garnering attention for for attention garnering with tasked is who cross-dresser or transvestite a for In “Walking in the City,” Michel de Certeau suggests that the ­ Michel de Certeau suggests City,” in the “Walking In 13

the ability to dissolve the boundary between spectator and performer. There is a marked spectator and performer. the ability to dissolve the boundary between

— his/her troupe, encouraging the dancers, and encouraging the audience to participate. The “voorlooper” (front (front “voorlooper” participate.to audience the encouraging and dancers, the The encouraging troupe, his/her sportsbut militaryand jacket tasseled a troupe the of head- rest the as scheme color same the wears walker) feather ostrich dyed a with plumed gear Conversations with Willie Jales, Robert Sithole, and Mac Mackenzie are recorded in my field notes from 2002 2002 from notes field my in recorded are Mackenzie Mac and Sithole, Robert Jales, Willie with Conversations 2003. and word Afrikaans a Cape is “Moffie” the front. The moffie is not granted an official role in the Carnival (she cannot compete in the later Greenpoint Greenpoint the later in compete (she cannot the Carnival in role official an granted is not moffie The front. the of universe sexual a narrating involvement, peripheral of space a occupies she instead, competitions); Stadium transgression. erotic a century 19th in The manifested double-speak although its aesthetically intricate, been have to appears also hats feathered and breeches satin with ensembles elaborate were costumes minstrel The way. different slightly participants one which in 1870s, the of costumes invoked fireman’s the were as elite, white the mock to designed 1994). (Bickford-Smith it undermine to order in only officialdom colonial of markers the of Both the Carnival and the city experienced a tremendous loss through forced District Six the city experienced a tremendous loss Both the Carnival and its hierarchies meanings are made anew, Town’s But it is through the Carnival that Cape tomahawk-wielding Atja American; the Devil in horns with a red and black face; and the Bits black face; and the horns with a red and the Devil in American; Atja tomahawk-wielding from medical nurses range of identities, represented a whose costumes Group, and Pieces to figures of myth. , voorlooper military-braided and the cross-dressed moffie, formative processions of the 1950s and 1960s as events that included not only minstrels, the hyperper not only minstrels, as events that included of the 1950s and 1960s processions 12. 11. 13. have shifted from a once racially inclusive event full of individual expression into something into something of individual expression inclusive event full from a once racially have shifted ( affair” “largely coloured as a understood Jeppie 1990:10). of a city is revealed and animated only by its pedestrians, that “their intertwined paths give that animated only by its pedestrians, of a city is revealed and and meaning is made indeed, If, (1984:99). They weave places together” their shape to spaces. was lost through the advent of then meaning through walking, inscribed through wandering, city center. Town’s fell over Cape Act and the subsequent hush and quiet that Areas the Group if only for a few days a year. this silence, The Carnival resists depletion of its urban land- the more obvious scarification and removals: the city through toll that disorientation took through the disorientation of exile and the the Carnival scape, a sense today of repetitiveness and There is of the procession. on the imaginative dimensions suits; of multitudes of synchro- of a routine of two-toned satin restriction in the celebration: hemmed in by steel barricades that delineate the nized umbrellas dipping; and of troupes being thus neutering one of Carnival’s most powerful weap- line between participant and observer, ons Lisa a sense that the desire for continuity has triumphed over innovation. fixity to all of it, was the Carnival with the advent of the removals, Baxter notes that interviewees insist that city in 1967; and that it shifted from being an event effectively banned from the center of the “a muted into “joyous celebration of emancipation” and a “spontaneous festive spirit” filled with (1996:2). mourning dispossession” lament, body that and it is the carnivalesque body that is central; it is the challenged and upended, of inclusion and that outlines its own logics undermines, that that mocks, invents the grotesque, , Town in Cape Can’t Get Lost novel You Wicomb’s In Zoe of domination and freedom. exclusion, and implications of argue about precisely these meanings Tamieta, Charlie and two characters, the festival inscribes servility onto the bodies of its partici- insists that Tamieta the Carnival. white people to “Sies [...] I don’t know how you can put yourself on show like that for the pants: version of offers a different who is from District Six, But Charlie, Day.” Year’s laugh at on New and tells a story between white and black, and viewer, the power dynamics between participant who dare to walk the streets of the city at night dur about what happens to white Capetonians all over their “That’s when we get all the whities and rub the black polish ing the procession: know its going to [...] I suppose the whities who come there [...] It’s a tradition you know. faces. 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94 Nadia Davids dom, enactsagainandthetermsofhisservitude. with theminstrelaslaughing, dancingclownwho, throughcelebratinghisonedayoffree- demonstrate, troupemembersdonotholdthesamemisgivingsaboutimagery­ rarely expressconcernsaboutthatword. Similarly, asthequotesfromMatthewsand­ meaning “Cape,” Klopsereferringtothedefinitiverhythmbeatoutongoemadrum), they seldom usetheword “coon,” preferringinsteadthe Afrikaans patoisKaapseKlopse(Kaapse )remaininusage. Though participantsintheCarnival words (andperhapstheCarnivalitself or torescue. PocketsofCape Town’s blackintelligentsiacontinuetobedismayedthatcertain uously. Lockedinitscostumesandevenlanguageisahistorythatdifficulttoreconcile find it. and todancethroughthecityisinsistonspace, todemandspace, andperhapssometimesto “to walkistolackplace” (1984:107), butIwouldarguethatinthecaseofCarnival, towalk fright oftheirliveswhenwejumpouttheshadows” ([1987]2000:48). DeCerteauwritesthat happen andcomespeciallyfortheblackpolish, butperhapsthereis[...]oneortwowhogetthe 14. predates theseevents. desire toregulate, sublimate, andsubduethepublic visibilityoftheBlackunderclasscity Africans fromDistrictSixtoNdebeni. Butmomentous thoughthosedislocationswere, the with the1966DistrictSixforcedremovalsor, atastretch, withthe1950sremovalofblack It isoftenassumedthattheattempttoremoveBlackCapetonians fromthecity’scenterbegan The EmancipationDay Procession tionship toitscenterwasalwaysperipheral, itinerant, andneverrooted. center andtoensurethatBlackCapetonianswerecityvisitors, notdwellers, andthattheirrela- ism. Itwasthefinalgestureinaseriesofattemptstolaytotalclaimandcontrolcity belonged totheNationalistParty, butitwaspredicatedonthehistoricalviolenceofcolonial- the citywithsimilarnarrativesofloss, demand, andbelonging. The Group Areas Act of1950 it” (1984:422). of freedomandahangover. Butforthistheywaitedawholeyear, andtheyputeverythinginto town”; buthelamentedthat “troupe membersgotlittleoutoftheCarnivalbutaone-daysense lampooning ‘respectable’ citizensandactuallybeingseen[...]amobonthewrongsideof ties andthepolice. Thousands ofnoisystreetbrothersweredemandingfreedomthestreets, symbolic stormingofthecitybypoor, anactwhichclearlyunnervedboththe cityauthori- Don Pinnockunderstoodthesecontradictionswhenhedescribedtheprocessionas “annual rary emancipationisanathematosomebutthemostsignificantdayoncalendarothers. Museum, despiteitsimmenseforceandfocusintheimaginationofformerresidents. “threaten nothing,” ledtotheomissionofCarnivalformanyyearsfromDistrictSix nival masker” ([1970]1998:7), thoseeasilysummonedcharactersthatpreserveeverythingand Derek Walcott termedthe “old colonialgrimaceofthelaughingnigger, steelbandsman, car ship ofCape Town’s BlackintellectualelitewiththeCarnival;elites’revulsionatwhat But thisCarnival, likeallcarnivals, doesnotdeclareitsperformanceoffreedomunambig- This annual “storming ofthecity” hasitsrootsinanolderprocession, whichinscribed This is, inmanyways, thecentraldilemmaofCarnival:idearejoicingintempo- Town Minstrel Carnival. withthewayinwhichcreolizationof “intercultural” is symmetry realized findsacertain through and by theCape place. [...] Intercultural [...] is where cultural practices are obliged to share the same time-space” (11). His reading as “intercultural” as opposed to “multicultural”: “Multicultural is whereculture in its assigned every performs anny) imposed in the name of ‘democracy’” (2004:3). The second is that he understands the Trinidadian Carnival relief fromplays out democratic illusions, giving temporary the authority (if not oppression and downright tyr- often ascribed to Carnival, positioning it (Carnival) as potentially an “enactment that at one and the same time Carnival for two reasons; the first is that he, like Walcott, is suspect of the limits on the liberationist narratives Richard Schechner’s work on the Trinidadian Carnival offers a fascinating comparison to the Cape Town Minstrel 14 The ambiguous, chargedrelation- associated others - Cape Town Minstrel Carnival 95 Their congregation at the 15

This cemetery had particular significance for Cape Muslims because it was the burial site of Tuan Guru, the Tuan of site burial the was it because Muslims cemeteryThis particular had Cape for significance more. for (2005) Jonker See Cape. the at Islam of figure founding In 1753, the Tulbagh Code, a series of draconian laws enforced by violence and sometimes sometimes violence and by laws enforced of draconian a series Code, Tulbagh the In 1753, did not mean that the streets which outlawed slavery, Act of 1834, The Emancipation and policed movement propped up by The experience of circumscribed public freedom This struggle for visibility, for recognition, took on other forms. While the former slave While took on other forms. for recognition, This struggle for visibility, as one Capetownian there were, ended, when apprenticeship On 1 December 1838, “a number of processions of Coloured peo- [sic] later remembered from his childhood, ‘Victoria! singing a Dutch song in which every verse ended Town, parading Cape ple ... My mother asked a coloured girl to go on an Daar waai die Engelsche vlaag’.” Victoria! and van Heyningen, Worden, (in we are free today.” “no, errand for her and she said, Bickford-Smith 2004:108) by death, was passed to govern slaves at the Cape. Slaves were subject to a strict curfew, had to to a strict curfew, Slaves were subject slaves at the Cape. was passed to govern by death, were and the day, whistle in public during forbidden to sing or were at all times, carry a pass to speak to each other not allowed to stop They were night. to make any sound at forbidden Other (Shell 1994). was illegal any form of congregation indeed, Town; of Cape on the streets of the laws seemed but most at rebellion, and any attempts the use of weapons laws regulated slaves were consistently silent in ensuring that control of public space, to rotate around the the In the context of these laws, of ownership of that small metropolis. and without any sense (and later the Carnival) indicate of the 18th and 19th centuries Emancipation Day processions even forceful attempt to lay these laws of invisibility and a proactive, a creative refusal to obey claim to urban territory. munic- Town the Cape writes that soon after the proclamation, Bickford-Smith became open. “included the vague concept that “loitering” of new regulations against ipality drew up a set “caus- thoroughfares,” “blocking slaves who were accused of Former ‘annoyance.’” of causing and activities such as person,” property and and endangering morals, ing too much noise, “attacked by white middle class critics” were [and] street games” hop-skotch, “group singing, “any loud and By 1875 the police could arrest anyone for (in Bickford-Smith 1998/1999:120). screaming alley or public thoroughfare either by shouting, square, in a street, unseemly noise, peace, the rest, by blowing upon any instrument which may disturb or interfere with or yelling, These laws were (in Bickford-Smith 1998/1999:120). comfort or tranquility of the inhabitants” of visibility and movement that manumission passed precisely to undermine the small freedoms had ostensibly allowed. Riot of the most notorious of these being the Cemetery legal violence led to a series of riots, Act of 1883, Health Baru Cemetery had been closed under the Public Tana Although the 1886. for a funeral in 1886. some 3,000 Muslims gathered at the cemetery burial grounds on the slopes of was an act of ritual burial and public mourning but it and public mourning burial ritual act of was an Signal Hill slopes of on the grounds burial As the mourners processed claiming of public space. was also a staged defiance and an insistent they inscribed on it both their presence and cemetery, through the colonial city and toward the with the It is difficult to resist reading this procession as being in conversation their difference. or as a Town at this point an annual feature in Cape Emancipation Day processions that were into acts of political how funerals would be transformed or perhaps a rehearsal for, prophecy of, is not only “telling of Ralph Ellison’s aphorism that resistance in the years ahead: a performance (in Murray and Callahan 2000:xxiii). a matter of retelling but also of foretelling” the subject of their celebration and picnicked, celebrated, processed, Town population of Cape instances emerge from Two by the settler population. was often unnoticed or unacknowledged Town. the archive to illustrate this dissonance in colonial Cape an This same spirit of subversion and refusal can be found in one of the earliest ghoemaliedjies, sung in the Emancipation procession: “Rule Britannia” artful and pointed spin on 15. Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DRAM_a_00262 by guest on 27 September 2021 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DRAM_a_00262 by guest on 27September 2021

96 Nadia Davids nial culturalpracticesbutthataredesignatedasbelongingwithinthezoneofrespectability. akin tothecommemorationsfor “King’s birthday” or “Boxing Day,” bothofwhicharecolo- not viewtheCarnivalasbeingasuitablemeansofremembrance, desiringinsteadsomething processions.1 December The accusationreflectshowthewriterpositionsminstrels;hedoes Day, fulfillthatveryfunctionandtheyexistonaculturalhistoricalcontinuumwiththe 16. named afterthe American filmstar” (2001:11). IntervieweeEddieMatthews reminiscedabout namedafter from Bonteheuwal [,...] ‘Jerry Lewis’the American comedian, andPiper Laurie[,] ized America. Inaseriesofinterviews, participants spokeof “Jerry [...]thedrummajor and reimagined. ZahrinaRahman’s(2001)researchon theCarnivalrevealedhowitcentral- mirroring that, throughexportation, decontexualization, andappropriation, hasbeenremade tions, fromjazztohip-hop, havelongbeengrafted intotheCarnival’srepertoire. Itisacultural names wereexpresslychosentosuggestalinkwiththeUnited States, andUSmusicaltradi- ifest throughanapparentlycontradictorycombinationofmimicry anddisavowal. Troupe within theprocession, convergingatapointwhichfascination, yearning, anddesireallman- blackface isonlyoneinstanceofhowintimatelythecountryand itspeopleareconfigured few streetsawayinthissamelargelyMuslimneighborhood, anti-Americangraffiticanbefound. umbrellas, orsmallerversionsoftheUSflag. InkeepingwithCape Town’s incongruities, justa and bluesatinsuits, theirfacesadornedwithswirlingstars, thehandsfullofbrassinstruments, of troupemembers, musicians, rank-and-fileparticipants, andchildren, alldressedinred, white, his troupewasabouttomakeatriumphantentryintotheBo-Kaap. Behindhimwerehundreds On 2January2012, anoversize American flagwasheldaloftbyavoorlooperashesignaledthat and theFictionofFreedom Carnival,The America, that the Tweede NuweJaarcelebrations, who donotcommemorate1Decemberas “playing white.” Butthewriterdoesnotacknowledge Here, inanintriguingnexusof “race,” class, memory, andforgetting, thewriteraccusesthose economic mobility: sation, “Straatpraatjies,” framedthis “forgetting” asastrategyofupwardpoliticaland or referredtowiththesameeaseandnewspapercolumnof African People’sOrgani­ Motifs andthemesoftheUnitedStatesaredeeplyembedded intheCarnival. The useof money. (in Ward and Worden 1998:205) ber it. Butnowtoomanyofthemwanttobewhite. They “play white” whentheyhave birthday orBoxingDay?... There wasatimewhentheCapebrownpeopledidremem- the slaveswerefreed. Why isitthatwedon’tcommemorateday, liketheKing’s I regretthatourpeoplethinksolittleof1December. Onthatday, as everyoneknows, By 1909therehadbeenashiftinculturalmemory;slaverywasnolongerspoken about Crazy roguesyouhavebythehand. (inBickford-Smith1994:302) Oh foggyIsland, whatalotof Those thatcallthislandtheirown... Your tyrannywillsoonhumble Must slowlylearnyourlaws... People notascrazyyou, Make thenationsintoslaves Come Britannia, thecivilisingone, the day on which slaves were allowed to celebrate the New Year. Nagtroepe, the Klopse, the Christmas Bands). “Tweede Nuwe Jaar” translates to “Second New Year” (2 January), “Tweede Nuwe Jaar” refers to both a specific day (2 and/or a collection of days and events (the January)

16 whilenotexplicitlyacelebrationofEmancipation Cape Town Minstrel Carnival 97 - the home — representation

. Matthews, indubitably, was teasing when he said this, playing with the ideas of playing he said this, was teasing when indubitably, Matthews, ones. The real blackface within the Carnival (1999) positions the appropriation of Denis-Constant Martin the traces of blackface minstrelsy (however distorted the ­ And perhaps too, Town cent of the slave population of Cape Locally born slaves comprised over 70 per 1834 as opposed to the hitherto predominantly and the Cape District between 1816 and As a direct consequence of this demographic ­foreign-born demographic composition. slave culture of the late eighteenth century Cape the predominantly Eastern-based shift, was transformed into a creolized and far more vibrant slave/underclass culture of Town (1994:90). the early nineteenth century. fame and authenticity, and yet in doing so, he reveals an important dimension of Cape black- dimension of Cape reveals an important he yet in doing so, and fame and authenticity, orig- it imprints the and replication, processes of appropriation the Carnival’s face: that through doing so and textures and in with new resonances popular figure) the the song, inal (the image, has become an entity both differ though still in dialogue with its source, creates something that ent and self-sustaining. noting that Black South from a sense of excitement and hope, as emerging predominantly of another black community cre- and fortified by the notion bolstered, Africans were intrigued, credits a visit by the Christy’s Minstrels He (177). non-white modernity” “alternative, ating an Africans to new forms of danc- introducing South the Cape Carnival, in 1862 as revolutionizing and “race” affirming ways of performing possibly music-making and to new, and singing, ing, the United Africans, to Black South David Coplan (1985) suggests that relations (79–80). “race” incorrect) belief circulated of social freedom: an unsubstantiated (and States was emblematic in their country’s political sys- Americans participated actively African Africa that in South Martin describes and upward social mobility. tem and were privileged with self-determination (which had a predominantly coloured readership) how newspapers such as the Cape Standard pub- Americans enjoyed full democratic rights, African consistently reiterated the notion that Coloured Citizens. Recognized Her “U.S.A. entitled a two-page article for instance, lishing, That this was still a fiction was not 1999:176–77). (Martin Ability Precedes Colour” Where minds of America gradually became synonymous in the and Black Town, yet realized in Cape initial absorption of The and self-determination. autonomy, Black Capetonians with freedom, of replicated, not an act was a bid for freedom, the blackface minstrel into the Cape Carnival racist patterns. regressive, by the touring The characters performed of kinship. was) were an instance of recognition, the (2003) has shown, Vink As Markus of slavery. groups spoke to the experience and survival at the with the exception of the indigenous Khoi and San peoples working slave population, Indigenous black South were imported from throughout the Dutch and British colonies. Cape, and reach of despite the power resisted slavery and, Africans such as the Xhosa and the Zulu and thus were able to maintain their languages and their cultural practices the missionaries, in the Andrew Bank explores the changing demographics a sense of tradition and continuity. slave population: of cultural loss and new formations Behind this statistical analysis lies another story, the need to language and traditions of the slaves giving way to the pressures of dislocation and American blackface in some ways could be read as a trau- Adopting establish a common culture. global matized community’s attempt to create further cultural cohesion through an imagined a sense of dif- alliance with another ex-slave community and perhaps also to continue to embed who by the late 1890s were Africans, ference and separation between themselves and black including residential segregation and prohibitory “singled out for specific discrimination, being (Bickford-Smith 1994:309). liquor laws” the Carnival when it took place in District Six, saying, “We had Al Jolson in our troupe, do you troupe, in our Al Jolson had “We saying, in District Six, when it took place the Carnival (11). real ones” The Yes. Jolson and Paul Robeson? Al know Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DRAM_a_00262 by guest on 27 September 2021 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DRAM_a_00262 by guest on 27September 2021

98 Nadia Davids Kamaldien; courtesy of Kamaldien; courtesy Yazeed Kamaldien) The Stars and Stripes at the 2 2012January Tweede Nuwe Jaar Parade in the Bo-Kaap. (Photo by Yazeed polish on the face and white circles around the eyes is replaced with a multitude of colors and patterns. Figures 2 & 3. (above and facing page) In today’s Carnival, the traditional of smeared, pattern black shoe blackface affords, thusinscribingthemaskwiththoseverypowersofsymbolismandmagic. Matthews, Stemmet, andSardienallinsistonthefreedomto “go crazy” thatthe “mask” of And yetblackfaceintheCapeMinstrelCarnivalappearstodoexactlythis. The quotesfrom American blackface: idea ofthe “mask” reallyconveys. (1999:330) atrical effectivenessoftheminstrelmaskdependsverymuchonwhoworeitandwhat and symbolicpropertiesoftotemssacralizedobjectsignoresthefactthat- or othernon-Western cultures. The assumptionendowsthemakeupwithmagical to assumethatburntcorkmakeupwornbywhitemenfunctionedasmasksdoin African [T]he blackfacemaskcouldbeapowerfulvehicleforracialdepiction, butitisamistake William Maharsumsupthedifficultiesaroundperformativeandpoliticallimitationsof imagined affiliation. freedom, oratleastfreedomby rather asamaskthatpromises invoke racistcaricaturebut the Capeismobilizednotto and birthdays. Blackfacein weddings, naming­ otal momentsandcelebrations: the samesongsthatmarkpiv- ing groups. Instead, theyare of those19th-­ echo theculturalfraudulence tive, mockingway. They donot are notperformedinanimita- that aresungattheCarnival addition, thetraditionalsongs make-up atall” (1999:9). In ticipants “do notputonany Martin observesthatsomepar bolts, stripes, andclownfaces. patterns ofstars, lightning creating paintedandglittered colors tomatchtheiroutfits, participants useamultitudeof eyes israrelyused. Instead, and whitecirclesaroundthe black shoepolishontheface traditional patternofsmeared, ined. Intoday’sCarnival, the blackface havebeenreimag- Certainly theconventionsof century tour ceremonies, - - Cape Town Minstrel Carnival 99 and it was in — ” (in Baxter 1996:iv). It was a canny (in Baxter 1996:iv). ” Mandela was by all accounts greeted with wild enthusiasm Mandela was by all accounts greeted with —

The meanings attached to the Carnival have shifted significantly over the years, swinging over the years, to the Carnival have shifted significantly The meanings attached The Cape Town Minstrel Carnival has been described as a “living archive” in which the city’s in which the city’s “living archive” a has been described as Minstrel Carnival Town The Cape but it is is a creative venture, then, Carnival, The and critiqued. are articulated spatial histories of the It is one practices. of resistant archival of heritage, of self-memorialization, also an act - silenced experi that embodies the historically cultural landscape Africa’s South few sites within survival. and eventual cultural dislocation, slavery, ence of capture, moments both as a site of resis- It has been understood at different between seeming opposites. but perhaps its most and as a means of remembering and forgetting, tance and collaboration On 1 January and indigenous. lies in the fact that it is simultaneously creole abiding significance Stadium where the Greenpoint Town’s Mandela strode onto Cape President Nelson 1996, “minstrel-style out- a sequined wearing assembled and ready to compete, Carnival troupes were an it was and demographic terms, In political (Martin 1999:169). ANC” the fit in the colours of by simultaneously position- Cape coloured working-class vote Western attempt to secure the and as being “coloured culture” emblematic of some sort of distinct ing the Carnival as both “as much South the Carnival was Mandela opened by insisting that African. innately South [...] It is us dance. African as braaivleis [barbecue] and Zulu “It is us” strategic move keeping with the nation-building rhetoric of “rainbowism” and diversity without division, an and diversity without division, “rainbowism” of keeping with the nation-building rhetoric In placing the Carnival between “separate but equal.” inversion of the apartheid deception of associated with white (braaivleis) and black (Zulu a continuum of two practices traditionally to position it as existing in a zone between the two while Mandela seemed Africa, dance) South His decision to to belong. its right to lay claim, Africanness,” “South still affirming its inherent he could also and yet a particular political moment, woo voters in this way was indubitably of national inclusivity. have been ushering in a new language of Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DRAM_a_00262 by guest on 27 September 2021 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DRAM_a_00262 by guest on 27September 2021

100 Nadia Davids Jeppie, Shamil. 1990. “The Class, ColourandGenderofCarnival: Aspects ofaCulturalForminInner Henri, Yazir, andHeidiGrunebaum. 2005. “Re-historicising Trauma: Reflectionson Violence and Gqola, PumlaDineo. 2010. WhatIsSlavery toMe?Postcolonial/Slave inPost-Apartheid Memory South Africa. Field, Sean, RenateMeyer, andFelicitySwanson, eds. 2007. Imagining theCity:MemoriesandCultures in Erasmus, Zimitri. 2001b. “Introduction: Re-imaginingColouredIdentitiesinPost-ApartheidSouth Africa.” Erasmus, Zimitri, ed. 2001a. Coloured by History, Shapedby Place:NewPerspectives onColoured IdentitiesinCape Coplan, DavidB. 1985. In Township Tonight!: South Africa’s Black CityMusicand Theatre . London:Longman. Conquergood, Dwight. 2002. “Performance Studies:InterventionsandRadicalResearch.” TDR46, 2 de Certeau, Michel. 1984. “Walking intheCity.” InThePractice ofEveryday Life, trans. StevenRendell, Bickford-Smith, Vivian. 1998/1999. “Leisure andSocialIdentityinCape Town, BritishCapeColony, Bickford-Smith, Vivian. (1995)2003. EthnicPrideandRacialPrejudice in Victorian Cape Town: GroupIdentity Bickford-Smith, Vivian. 1994. “Meanings ofFreedom:SocialPositionandIdentityamongEx-Slaves Baxter, Lisa. 1996. “History, IdentityandMeaning:Cape Town’s CoonCarnivalinthe1960sand1970s.” Bank, Andrew. 1994. “The ErosionofUrbanSlaveryattheCape.” InBreaking theChains:Slavery andIts Baderoon, Gabeba. 2004. “The Provenanceofthe Term ‘Kafir’ inSouth AfricaandtheNotionof References made andremadethroughthelocal. including blackface exclusion andbelongingthatalthoughtheaestheticsrepertoireofCarnival leaders: thatthemeaningsofCarnivalareboundupinCape’shistoriessimultaneous tices. Indoingso, helentweighttothethoughtsandclaimsofCarnival­ traumas ofincohesionandlossintoaclose(andvalidating)proximitywithothernationalprac- val withitsmultiplehistoriesofculturalexchangeandappropriation, itsinterruptedsilences, its In dressinginthatcostumeandclaimingtheCarnival “is us,” Mandeladrewthefesti- VKOWx0KnbJ9&sig=AHIEtbToYfF5vI56ZPeQzY0xvBVfeDyyPw (11January2013). _qPuns73OkOYL3WMJ8bXTdeKKzC-fJaxQFaTtoPV1PESiJGT1UIgANY8_z-GzFUbbBscGBI7yd =en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESj3Q5BZ4Y-ICYe_U1OXi1MtHgBSC-bgt7peynFERES-c3Nfh9H waOWUJ:wiredspace.wits.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10539/7826/HWS-200.pdf%3Fsequence%3D1+&hl Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:CwQG08 Cape Town, c. 1939–c. 1959.” Paper presentedattheHistory Workshop, 6–10February, Universityof (27 November 2011). Memory, Cape Town, South Africa. www.medico.de/download/report26/ps_henrigrunebaum_en.pdf Memory inCurrent-dayCape Town.” Johannesburg: Witwatersrand UniversityPress. Cape Town. Cape Town: HSRC Press. Erasmus, 13–28. Cape Town: KwelaBooks. In Town. (T174):145–56. 91–97. Berkeley:UniversityofCaliforniaPress. 1838–1910.” and SocialPractice, 1875–1902. Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress. Witwatersrand UniversityPress. CapeColonythe Nineteenth-Century , eds. Nigel Worden andCliftonCrais, 290–312. Johannesburg: and Their DescendantsinCape Town, 1875–1910.” InBreaking theChains:Slavery andItsLegacy in MA thesis, UniversityofCape Town. Witwatersrand UniversityPress. Legacy CapeColony intheNineteenth-Century , eds. Nigel Worden andCliftonCrais, 79–98. Johannesburg: (22 January2012). Beginning.” Unpublishedpaper. http://web.uct.ac.za/depts/religion/documents/ARISA/2004_MS4.pdf Coloured by History, Shapedby Place:NewPerspectives on Coloured IdentitiesinCape Town, ed. Zimitri Cape Town: KwelaBooks. Kronos — 25:103–28. remain indialoguewiththeglobal, theirmeaningsandsignificanceare Paper presentedattheDirect Action CentreforPeaceand participants and —

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