Video: Cape Town Black Minstrels: A Celebration of Black Culture
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
Another January festival takes place on the other side of the earth - in hot Africa. At the very beginning of the year, thousands of musicians and entertainers travel to Cape Town to take part in the traditional minstrel convention. Some of these artists are black, many are white, and even more are those whose faces are hidden by a thick layer of makeup. Why paint your face in the scorching sun of South Africa, where is the height of summer now? You will find out now.
The history of this festival goes back a hundred years, but the movement from which it arose is much older. The fact is that in the century before last, the United States was literally flooded with wandering troupes of the "minstrel show". They portrayed the life and customs of blacks, borrowing their strange music and customs, and in the racist southern states, blacks in productions looked stupid and rude animals. They portrayed blacks, of course, white, but their faces were thickly smeared with black make-up.
The music and dancing of African slaves attracted the Americans so much that the popularity of the minstrel show grew. Towards the end of the century, along with the victory over slavery, the shows turned into huge theatrical productions that borrowed the most interesting from African American culture without any racist tricks. But the black make-up on the faces remained, and a hundred years ago the troupes of the last minstrels began to gather in such make-up in Cape Town.
This is why the Cape Town festival is so important to Africa that it shows how attitudes towards black people have changed over the centuries. Their culture and the songs of the minstrels have taken over the world; jazz, blues, spirituals, reggae and rock 'n' roll were presented to mankind by musicians of African descent. And if a hundred years ago, white artists inked their faces in mockery of blacks, now they do it as a sign of respect. During the festival, the streets of Cape Town are flooded with tourists, deafened by fast and fun music and blinded by the brightest colors of outfits and the glitter of painted faces - everything that is so organic in Africa.
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