Cape Town Minstrel Carnival

What it is

The carnival's official name is the Cape Town Minstrel Carnival. It is held on 2 January each year and belongs to the Cape Coloured communities of the city. As many as 13,000 performers take part, dressed in vivid colours, carrying umbrellas and playing instruments. They organise themselves into troupes, called klopse, a word that means clubs in Kaapse Afrikaans. Under apartheid the event was billed as the Coon Carnival; that name is now widely treated as an ethnic slur, so public bodies use the minstrel title instead. Performers still blacken their faces in some troupes, and this practice is disputed.

Origins and history

Cape Town's New Year was once the Dutch colony's biggest annual feast. Enslaved people were given 2 January as a day off, and after slavery ended at the Cape on 1 December 1834 the date grew into a celebration that brought the city's creole culture together. One troupe is thought to have formed in 1887. Visiting American minstrel companies left a deep mark: Christy's Minstrels came in 1862, and Orpheus McAdoo's Virginia Jubilee Singers performed in the 1890s, with burnt-cork makeup and whited-out eyes shaping the local style. The Green Point Cricket Club staged the first formal carnival in 1907. Abdullah Abdurahman revived a grand carnival at Green Point Track in 1920, and a rival event at Newlands followed in 1921.

Apartheid years

From the 1960s the state made the parade's life hard. In 1966 the Group Areas Act reserved District Six for white residents, and roughly 60,000 people were moved out to the Cape Flats, among them Manenberg and Mitchells Plain, breaking up the neighbourhoods where troupes had rehearsed. The carnival lost its Green Point stadium home in 1967, and in 1968 no minstrels walked the central city. Traffic rules and the Illegal Gathering Act were turned against organisers in the 1970s, and from 1971 spectators classed as non-white were sent to Athlone Stadium. Marches were banned across Cape Town in 1977. The event survived by moving between grounds until 1989, when it returned to its old route from District Six to Green Point.

The carnival today

Festivities open on 31 December, when the Cape Malay choirs, known as nagtroepe, walk the city through the night. The minstrels follow with their parade, and troupes and choirs gather at Green Point Stadium. Judging begins on the afternoon of 1 January, carries on through 2 January and finishes on the next two Saturdays. Panels of independent adjudicators score every group, and more than sixty troupes have taken part in some years. They compete for titles such as Champion of Champions, held for ten straight years by the Pennsylvanians. Some troupes take corporate money while others refuse it. Funding shortfalls nearly stopped the 2005 carnival, and the 2006 event was called off before organisers went ahead anyway.

Music and songs

Minstrel music grew out of many places at once. Enslaved people brought to the Cape in the 17th and 18th centuries came from Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, India, Madagascar and East Africa, and their descendants mixed with the local Khoisan population. British garrison marches shaped the way troupes step out, and many songs came from the Netherlands. The ghoema drum ties everything together, and its beat has been compared to rhythms heard in India, Indonesia, Africa and the Middle East. Ghoemaliedjies are ghoema songs; moppies are comic numbers and melodies are sentimental ones, both with Western and African-American roots. Cinema music from District Six added jazz. Well-known pieces include "Daar kom die Alibama", "Ek soek na my Dina" and "Die ossewa".

How Cape Town Minstrel Carnival is kept

Cape Malay choirs called nagtroepe walk the streets late on 31 December. The troupes parade on 1 January, and judging starts that afternoon. On 2 January, Tweede Nuwe Jaar, troupes and choirs come together at Green Point Stadium, and the competitions continue on the two Saturdays after. Groups are scored in categories that include the grand march past, the exhibition march past, best dress, best board, drum major, chorus and group singing, moppies, sentimentals, best band, a solo piece from an American or jazz standard, and a special item. Away from the stadium, troupes march through the city and suburbs in costume, with brass bands and ghoema drums.

When and where

The carnival falls on 2 January every year, a date known as Tweede Nuwe Jaar, or Second New Year. Parades begin on 1 January, and the competition runs from that afternoon through 2 January and the two Saturdays after it. The choirs start the season late on 31 December.

It belongs to Cape Town in South Africa and is unique to that city. Performances fill the central streets and the Bo-Kaap, also called the Malay Quarter, on Signal Hill. Judging takes place at Green Point Stadium, and troupes also march through suburbs across the Cape Peninsula, where many families were moved during apartheid.

What Cape Town Minstrel Carnival means

For those who keep it, Tweede Nuwe Jaar is about continuing to exist. The musician Taliep Petersen is said to have called it "Dis onse dag", our day. It remembers the years of slavery, segregation and apartheid, and it points to the future at the same time. The klopse also give members pride and a sense of belonging, and organisers have used the carnival to work at social problems such as crime, drug use and AIDS, and to build links between communities after apartheid.

Questions people ask about Cape Town Minstrel Carnival

See also

DiwaliA five-day festival of lights celebrated across India and its diaspora to mark the victory of light over darkness.HanukkahAn eight-day Jewish festival marking the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and the miracle of a single day'Christmas EveThe evening before Christmas, marked by church services, family meals, and gift preparations across Christian cultures.HoliA spring festival of colours and bonfires that marks the end of winter and the triumph of good over evil.

Good reading and sources

• Kaapse Klopse on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.