Cape Town Minstrel Carnival

Troupe after troupe

The carnival is performed by troupes called klopse, from the Kaapse Afrikaans word for clubs. Each marches in its own glittering uniform, with hats, parasols and face paint, playing ghoema music on banjos, trumpets and drums, and the troupes are spaced out so that each can be heard on its own. At the front, dancers called voorlopertjies lead the way with extravagant moves. In 2026 more than 16 troupes and about 20,000 performers took part, watched by an expected 80,000 to 100,000 spectators, marching along a 1.2-kilometre stretch of Somerset Road in Green Point and into the stadium, where the competitions began.

The rivalry between troupes is fierce. Their costumes and performances are kept secret until the day, and they compete for trophies such as “Champion of Champions”. The ghoema drum is the thread that runs through all the carnival’s music, whose rhythms echo India, Indonesia, Africa and the Middle East, alongside moppies and melodies influenced by African American music.

The Second New Year

In the nineteenth century New Year was the biggest feast of the year at the Cape, and enslaved people were given 2 January off to celebrate in their own way. They dressed up and danced to banjos, guitars, ghoema drums, whistles and brass. Slavery at the Cape ended in 1834, and the first carnival troupe is thought to have been organised in 1887. Visiting American minstrel shows in the late nineteenth century also shaped the tradition — including the practice of blackening faces, which remains contentious today. Under apartheid the festival was known by a name now widely regarded as a racial slur, and it has since been renamed.

Apartheid hit the carnival hard. After District Six was declared a whites-only area in 1966 and about 60,000 residents were forcibly removed, the minstrels’ communities were scattered across the Cape Flats. The carnival was banned from its home at the Green Point stadium in 1967, and in 1977 minstrel marches were forbidden anywhere in Cape Town. The parade only returned to its original route, from District Six to Green Point, in 1989. The musician Taliep Petersen summed up what the day means: “Dis onse dag” — “It is our day”.