| The Carnival of Dreams |
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“The only reality is a dream. Nothing else is real. So all our lives, everything we do is fulfillment of dream…" Abdullah Ibrahim Part I. Theatre for the liberated. Carnivals are of full of dreamers. People in the throes of ascencion, attempting to raise an entire city. It’s something revolutionary, people taking to the streets to claim cities as their own. In Africa there are few carnivals, that is to say few spectacular and spontaneous uprisings of cultural celebration, in the street. It’s something revolutionary. People taking to the streets, claiming the cities as their own. With the pomp of costumes and dance, and the pulse of music and march. Certainly there is no carnival in Africa as spectacular as the Coon Carnival. The backdrop is the most beautiful city in the world, one of the energy centres of the world and a bridge to all possible worlds. Cape Town connects with all of Latin America, it talks to India, Malaysia and the middle east. It pulls Europe into its orbit, and the Japanese come just for the golf courses – there are none as picturesque in all the world. Cape Town is all the rage in Germany. Ah Kapstad! They exclaim. Even if they haven’t been there it’s all they want to do. Everybody wants a piece of the table mountain and the joy it promises. And so under the table, the stage is set for a dramatic and fantastical tale. A tale of the Cape Town dreamers who have always appeared at the right time in our history and created magic to inspire a city. We’re talking about people like Abudllah Ibrahim, Basil Coetzee, Kamali, Mr Mac McKenzie and 50 years later his son Gerald Mac, Melvyn Matthews, Kaatjie Davids and Boeta Dickie. Their carnival is a theatre of liberation. Part II. A carnival in revolution It began with a drum, called the goma, and a dancer, called the gaai. The woman was the drummer and the man the dancer. Theirs was a song to the gods, a celebration of life, space and eternity. When one loses those three essentials, the song is no longer sweet and the dance no longer elegant. And so when the first colonisers arrived in Cape Town and took control of the land, the resources and therefore the people, the goma and the gaai slowly became pejarotised and faded into insignificance. Slavery was introduced and with it one day a year of freedom for the slaves. On this day the slaves ran amok in the city, wildly, with the intoxication of space and time and movement, reclaiming the land. Just for one day. And so the annual Cape Town Carnival was born. It was later in times after emancipation, dubbed the Coon Carnival because the participants in Cape Town painted their faces black like the New Orleans freed slaves who painted theirs in mimicry of the white minstels who painted their faces black to parody blacks. Or so the story goes. For this tale, its not important. What is important is that there was freedom and celebration. Later when the slaves were emancipated in 1834, the tradition continued as a memorial to freedom. But freedom is tentative and elusive. And a century later freedom was in reversal. The 1950s was the grandest period yet for the carnival, and yet it was the period that lead directly into next round of slavery, apartheid. And so the carnival died again. People who are not liberated cannot have a carnival. And so from the late 1950s through till the late 1990s, a period of 50 years, the carnival wasn’t able to function. It didn’t actually die, it simply went underground. And with that move came gangsters and drugs and aclohol and the self-combustion that kept it going but killed its soul. It’s only startign to re-emerge now. The carnival is starting to realise it has to draw in the whole city. And the city is slowly, very slowly - its ojnly the waking phases now – realising its right to have a carnival. Part III Mr Mac. Perhaps it was to be expected that Mr Mac would be stabbed. The 1950s was changing fast and the days of gentlemanly gangsterism were on their way out. He was after all the King of the Coon Carnival, with many rivals in the fiercely and proudly contested epicentre of Cape Town culture. And his relentlessly triumphant Cornwall Troupe of Gympie Street in Woodstock was the pride of the city - and the envy of rival coaches. A few years earlier this envy might have been dealt with respectfully, with sleeves rolled up, a few good punches thrown, and mama standing by to ensure that no knives were pulled out or dirty tricks played. But Mr Mac was an orphan, and everything was changing. The technicolour era of style and racy romance was losing its sparkle as the apartheid regime clamped down and the political climate raced towards the typhoon of Sharpeville 1960. The ire of the people was rising. The government had introduced the Supression of Communism act and was randomly arresting black political figures. The ANC had rolled out its Defiance Campaign. And then in '56 the great leaders were arrested. Lithuli, Tambo, Mandela, Sisulu, all of them taken in one swoop and tortured through a five year Rivonia trial. People were getting edgy. The stakes were getting higher. The more that was taken away from people by the government, the more the playground of dreams that was the Coon Carnival became important. Playing the game was no longer enough. Winning, recognition, claiming ownership of title and space, that was what mattered. So it was no surprise that the extravagant Mr Mac was stabbed in the liver by a rival and sent packing never to return to the Carnival. Mr Mac's was a period of terrific enlightenment. He raised the carnival to ecstatic heights. While he was the King of Cape Town, the Carnival bristled with pride and passion. Troupes marched through the streets of Cape Town with military precision, ballroom elegance and the ecstacy of goema. The singers sang for the blessing of the stars, the rows of dancers were as inspired as Fred and Ginger, and the people were themselves. It was lighthearted and celebratory, a period that – like the Brazilian and Cuban carnivals - fulfilled a collective dream of owning the city, a dream of joy and relief from daily life. It was the highest order of street theatre. Nothing was static. Everything moved. Dreamers in a dreamworld of wondrous colour and rhythm. And then Mr Mac was stabbed and decades of silence ensued. Part IV. Kamalie, Abdullah and Basil Where Mr Mac was extravagance, Kamalie was tradition and history. He was the king of drum and fife. His was the world of ratiep, where people enter a trance cut themselves with swords and bayonets without pain or blood. A spirit world far above the normal world where everything was possible. His troupe was the Wild Apaches. Abdullah Ibrahim and Basil Coetzee were the jazz cats, their introduction to the world of the carnival was through Kamali. They stepped into his world and could never leave. Abdullah told me this story some years back: "One year we played at Athlone stadium with the Apaches, drum and fife. I mean that drum and fife thing man, unbelievable, that was trance stuff. So we come out of the stadium and its now about 5 o clock, the day is finished. There's lots of troupes and people are queuing, now we go into the first house, it belongs to a troupe member and you play a few songs there and they entertain you, give cakes and teas and stuff, then you go to the next one two miles away, and there are people all along the street and they join us. So we come out of Athlone stadium and we go down Klipfontein road and there were a lot of people. And we just naturally formed a circle. And Kamali was in the middle with the bassdrum. Everybody was playing. And then we realised what was going on, everybody was just in a trance. We we were transported in time, we looked at each other and we all had different clothes on. And we checked like old traditional Khoi clothes on, everybody. It lasted about 5 seconds, 5 or 10 seconds. Time space change. And then the spell was broken and we were back again. That was the first experience when I said to Basil we're going to play this music." Playing the tradition is the hardest thing, Abdullah told me. Anybody can play jazz, but playing tradition, that’s hard work. Tradition is about healing. Because in tradition is where dreams are kept alive. And holding onto dreams, turning dream into reality, that’s the hardest thing. Part V. A liberated city. The carnival has reached a new phase, which by this tale’s counting is stage 5. Stage one was the Khoisan with the goma and gaai. Stage two was the one day of freedom a year the slaves had. Stage three was emancipation, stage four the 1950s. And now we are in stage 5. The new millenium, a new energy. Apartheid is over. Cape Town governance is changing. The city is finally aspiring to be itself. People like Melvyn Matthews, who created magic with the Penny Pincher All Stars in the late 90s and 2001, have succesfully lobbyed government to recognise Cape Town’s cultural heritage. He received several millions from government to take a variety of troupes to international carnivals to participate and learn more so that we can enhance our carnival. Boeta Kaatjie Davids is doing similar work with the District Six Museum to advance the carnival tradition. The City of Cape Town structures have taken on the carnival as one of its Cape of Great Events, and Geraas, the Kyknet Afrikaans music show on MNET, recently awarded the music award of the year to the Coon Carnival. If that isn’t a sign of changing times… Cape Town is in a new phase of liberation. The traditional goema music of the carnival is experiencing a terrrific re-emergence with the breadth of the city’s musicians stepping into Kamali’s circle and innovating on carnival tradition. Dreams are once more becmoming reality. And the carnival must now surely be in the next major phase of evolution – ascenscion. |
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