Kaapse Klopse

The Kaapse Klopse (or simply Klopse) is a minstrel festival that takes place annually on 2 January and it is also referred to as Tweede Nuwe jaar (Second New Year), in Cape Town, South Africa. As many as 13,000 minstrels take to the streets garbed in bright colours, either carrying colourful umbrellas or playing an array of musical instruments. The minstrels are self organised into klopse ("clubs" in Kaapse Afrikaans, but more accurately translated as troupes in English). Participants are typically from Afrikaans-speaking working class Cape coloured families who have preserved the custom since the mid-19th century.

People consider the festival a rite of renewal that has been shaped by the Cape’s history. The events that are associated with Klopse in the festive season include competitions for the Christmas Choirs, Cape Malay Choirs and Cape minstrel choirs. The word probably derives from the Bushman autonym !Kung.

Although under apartheid it was called the Coon Carnival by Capetonians, local authorities have renamed the festival the Cape Town Minstrel Carnival as the term "coon" is racist and derogatory.

On the eve of 1 January, people will gather in the Bo-Kaap (Malay Quarter in Signal Hill) to await the Tweede Nuwe Jaar (2 January) with the songs of Malay choirs and ghoema drums ushering in the dawn of a New Year. During the 19th century, the New Year was celebrated by the Dutch and was considered to be the biggest annual feast. Slaves would get a day off on 2 January and were allowed to celebrate in their own manner. Slavery was officially abolished in the Cape on 1 December 1834. The Tweede Nuwe Jaar became a celebration that united the "creole culture" in Cape Town. It is estimated that the first carnival troupe was organised in 1887.
Modern Cape Coon tradition was influenced by the visit to the Cape by American minstrels. Old Cape minstrels, such as "The Ethiopians", had their own collection of Dutch and American songs. These minstrels used to parade the streets of Cape Town and serenade the locals with their songs. An etching by Heinrich Egersdorfer in 1884 depicted those regular marches by the local chapter of the Salvation Army, which included many of the locals, could have contributed to the style of the marching that the Klopse displays today. In 1862, the then internationally renowned Christy's Minstrels visited the Cape from the United States and in 1890 Orpheus McAdoo's Virginia Jubilee Singers performed in Cape Town. The Christy’s Minstrels were caucasian men and women who had blackened their faces with burnt cork to impersonate the African American slaves. Between July 1890 and June 1898 they staged many minstrel shows in Cape Town and it is believed that this contributed to the birth of the Cape Minstrels and the Coon Carnival. The visitors’ influence on the Coon Carnival included the tradition of painting their faces black and whited out their eyes to look like "racoons". In the 1900s, the celebrations took place at various locations. In 1907 Green Point Cricket Club organized the first formal Carnival and moved it to the Green Point Track which later became a tradition. The events continued in 1908 and 1909, but discontinued thereafter until 26 January 1920, when the leader of the African People Organization, Dr A Abdurahman, re-instated the "Grand Carnival on Green Point Track". In 1921, the Cape Town Cricket Club held a rival carnival in Newlands and this was the start of Coon competitions in various venues and by various organizing boards. New Year Carnivals of the 1920s and 1930s brought Coons, Privates, Brass Bands, Choirs and Malay Choirs together.

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