Power and Play

Abstract

Fancy Dress Carnival is a multimedia spectacle wherein masked performers don costumes and dance down the street or compete in an arena with accompanying musicians, usually a brass band, delighting Ghanaian audiences (Fig. 1). Fancy Dress is a distinctive form of carnival1 belonging to Ghana with a deep history that stems from both international and local practices. What sets Fancy Dress apart from other African masquerades are the carnivalesque meanings that connect it to other Black Atlantic carnivals. The colorful costumes, characters, and other fancy aspects exhibiting “play” and fierce characters expressing “power” interact with their spectators as a means to negotiate community identity, demonstrating a complicated relationship with Europe and the United States. Fancy Dress is a form of kakaamotobe, an umbrella term for a fierce display through costume, music, and dance found throughout the country.2The carnival started around the turn of the twentieth century as a combination of local religious and performance practices with foreign carnival forms. Local performances include those primarily from Fante asafo, paramilitary troops with religious and communal responsibilities, but also from Nzema and Ga practices along the coast.3 British sailors and officers, West Indian troops, Afro-Brazilians and others came to the coast in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries bringing with them their comedic skits, carnival, and British Fancy Dress.4 The Fante, one of several Akan groups in southern Ghana, occupy part of the coastline in the Central Region (Fig. 2). Energized by these popular forms of expression, the local Fante created their own version of Fancy Dress to release tensions built during British colonization.5 As Doran H. Ross aptly stated, the Fante of coastal Ghana, formerly the Gold Coast Colony, were “fighting with art” (Ross 1979).Masquerade can manipulate the space for empowerment, and through “selective amnesia” participants and spectators can reinvent a more acceptable memory (than perhaps one of disempowerment) that suits the community (Njoku 2020: 190-92), which is often the case with Black Atlantic carnivals that use performance as a healing tonic from the cultural trauma suffered during the transatlantic slave trade and colonialism. Theater in the streets as a performance conducted by the oppressed empowers participants and spectators as a therapeutic form of activism (Boal 1985: 122). Because characters allow performers to enact their desires and frustrations on the streets, Fancy Dress operates as theatrical activism to heal communities and thus has thrived for over a century.Multimedia events incorporating music, dance, costume, and skits provide a mechanism for letting off steam by revealing what is hidden from view. The hidden and unexpected are considered dangerous in many communities. Different rules exist during liminal periods such as those created by a masquerade; chaos creates a new order and is a source of power used to counter these dangerous forces (Kasfir 1988: 8). Ghana's youth embrace this power through play by bringing long-established forms to the contemporary moment through the utilization of foreign visual culture, elaborate costumes, masks and brass bands. Like Black Atlantic carnivals elsewhere, Fancy Dress expresses a sense of joy and unity while it also releases tensions at many sociopolitical levels.Masquerade for purposes of spiritual protection and/or socially corrective forces has existed for more than a century among Fante and related Akan groups. Fancy Dress animal characters and stilt walkers, or sakromodu (s. sakrabodu),6 are fierce characters with potential historical ties to the sakrobundi (Fig. 3), a character popular in the north that may have transferred south to the coast in the late-nineteenth century, possibly influencing the Fancy Dress stilt walker characters we see today. While the antics of wild animal masqueraders who roll on the ground and chase spectators are deemed playful, they are also considered dangerous untamed beasts who emerge from the bush to scare children and sometimes adults into submitting to cultural and social mores (Fig. 4).7 Likewise, the acrobatics of sakromodu are enjoyed, yet behind the scenes these performers must seek protection from harm through Christian prayer, libations poured to honor ancestors and local deities, and/or “by swallowing herbal medicine.”8 The initial function of wild animals and sakramodu may be a distant memory today to many spectators, and even performers, yet today's practices hint to an original function in “witch-hunting.”9Contemporary asafo performance of wild animal characters with carved wooden masks and natural fiber costumes called sakramodu or sakrobundi may be a century-long practice on the coast, originating from Akan-related groups in the central northeast area of Ghana. In 1889 colonial surgeon Richard Austin Freeman recorded an Akan performance in Odumase (near Techiman) involving one masquerader, the sakrobundi, in a long fiber costume wearing a large wooden mask representing “the head of an antelope with incurved horns … or a more or less grotesque human face surmounted by the characteristic horns” (Freeman 1967: 148-49). Dancers wearing fiber skirts encircled this fierce masquerader and “during the dance stooped down and made a show of sweeping the ground” with a fiber broom (Freeman 1967: 148-49).Similar performances designed to drive evil away from the community found their way from Côte d'Ivoire to the Gold Coast. These performance rituals, including a masquerade called Yoggon, were imported into Gyaman10 from the Senufo (Côte d'Ivoire) and used by the Abron, Kulango, and Nafana peoples (bordering Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana) in the last half of the nineteenth century. Sie Kwaku (ca. 1845-after 1908) first practiced Yoggon, but he soon embraced the new witch-finding power of sakrobundi (sakra meaning to turn away from and bone for wickedness/evil). Sakrobundi was popular in the Gyaman area and spread to the town of Welekei. Two masks came into use in Welekei—Kumbi in the form of a hyena, and another representing an antelope or wild ox. Sie Kwaku was in charge of the shrine housing the masks and led Sakrobundi masquerades. He stated that he was “helping Sakrobudi fetish in doing good to all to bring a blessing of peace and prosperity in destroying of witches to every town” (McCaskie 2004: 85-87, 90-92).11Widely popular, sakrobundi spread southward. By 1890, British officials reported they were worried about the growing influence of sakrobundi in the coastal town of Winneba, about 200 miles southeast of Welekei. Sakrobundi was flourishing into the 1920s and ‘30s until French colonial officers and Catholic missionaries pressured for its termination in the Bron Region. According to T.C. McCaskie, sakrobundi was initially successful for “its reputation for witch-finding, but its procedural impartiality also conferred upon it the status of a guardian of moral goodness and communal harmony” (McCaskie 2004: 93-94).Ross documented a female/male pair of wood-carved horizontal bush-cow masks partnered with costumes of natural fiber performed by the Amaafo No. 2 asafo company in Cape Coast in 1976. Another pair of wooden deer masks with natural fiber costumes was performed by an asafo company in Enyan Abassa in 1978. Also in the Central Region, a masquerader in Mankessim wore a horizontal wooden bush-cow mask with a cloth costume for a Kyirem No. 2 asafo performance in 1979 (Ross 1979). According to Silvia Forni and Ross (2017), asafo companies perform these animal characters or spirits, referred to as sakramodu, in pairs or singly occasionally. Similar to my initial findings with Fancy Dress, local colleagues interpreted these masquerades for Forni and Ross as “just for fun” or “to scare children.”12The Fancy Dress function of locating and driving away evil-doers in a town may be historical or kept secret from the community at large, yet the ideas of bringing goodness and harmony to the community continue to be assigned to wild animals and sakramodu today. Sakramodu may seek protection prior to events, and they are guarded by organizers and other masqueraders, usually Scout or Cowboy characters today, for both practical and religious reasons. Uncle Ekow Ackon, a Fante healer or ninsinyi, is a former Fancy Dresser and captain of his asafo company Wombir No. 2 in Elmina.13 Fancy Dressers come to him for protection during performance though it was more common in the past. They swallow an herbal medicine that “fortifies” the performer and protects them from harm. Using his sidur, a power object with attached animal hair, shells, and medicinal bundles, Ackon creates medicinal concoctions with prayers to the abosom, or local deities, for assistance. Sakramodu may drink a different medicine or wear a talisman, usually herbs stuffed into a small leather pouch. In the past, some masqueraders wore leaves around their necks during performances. The sakramodu must be protected from “witches” in the audience, who can cause him to fall into an invisible hole on their path. A ninsinyi “can make the leg break … can use [a sidur] for good or evil.”14 A sidur is a power object, much like Akan suman described by R. Sutherland Rattray (1969: 11-12, 17-24). Thus, when scouts surround a sakrabodu, they not only clear a path within the audience, but also guard the performer from invisible holes with a ring of spiritual protection (Micots 2021: 76-78). This may be similar to the ring of dancers who performed around the masquerader witnessed by Freeman.The character, rituals and choreography of the Fancy ᴐ komfo may display a spiritual, protective function (Fig. 5).15 Noted sakrabodu Kow Atta performs on 14-foot-high stilts. He protects himself from falls during performances with prayers to God be-forehand. While he knows some sakramodu seek protection from the local healer, as a Christian he believes “God blesses me.”16 He enjoys wearing either of two costumes—one depicting an ᴐ komfo, a priest engaged in local religious practices, or one similar to the Ghanaian flag in red, gold, and green with a black star. On the ground or on stilts, the ᴐ komfo character is one to be feared and respected. A Fancy ᴐ komfo wears a raffia skirt and crossed baldrics like the local priest (Fig. 6), but the masquerader either paints his face, all or partially white, or wears a mask. During performance the character may be involved in a skit or act indi-vidually by circling the group.17Fancy Dress is a voluntary secular organization composed of men and women who range in age, yet the majority are children and youths up to their thirties. Most identify themselves as Fante, yet members from Effutu, Ahanta, Ga, and other ethnicities are also involved. Many of the adults work as fishermen, carpenters, tailors, and in other trades, or are unemployed, or find work occasionally. In other words, they come from humble economic classes. Those who fare better, usually the middle class, help with financial support. Fancy Dress extends into towns across the coast beyond the Central Region into Tema in the Greater Accra Region to the east and Sekondi-Takoradi in the Western Region. More than 100 members may participate in each. Groups tend to form, split, and disintegrate regularly, and members may or may not participate in an event.Groups are named, inspired by local and imported ideas. Early Saltpond groups included the Red Indians, Chinese, Anchors, and Tumus.18 The Chinese are the longest continuously performing Fancy Dress group on the coast, having formed in 1923. Today, the Chinese, the Great Justice, Holy Cities, and a newly created Tumus perform in Saltpond. The numbers following the group names in Winneba—Nobles No. 1, Egyaa No. 2, Tumus No. 3, Red Cross No. 4, and Royals No. 5—reflect the order in which those groups developed, yet the numbering resembles those assigned to asafo by the colonial administration.Fancy Dressers appear primarily during the holiday season around Christmas and New Year's Day and during the town's primary harvest festival parade. Takoradi's Carnival as Festival and Winneba's Masquefest are the largest Fancy Dress events and are unique in how they are funded and organized. The twin cities of Sekondi and Takoradi have thirty-two active Fancy Dress groups wearing Simple Dress costumes who parade through local neighborhoods. Since the sponsorship and establishment of Carnival as Festival by Skyy Media Group in 2005, the groups now combine in a parade down four blocks of an old street in Takoradi on Boxing Day, the day after Christmas (Fig. 9). The carnival has developed into a huge annual event including the parade and stage performances.19After independence in 1957, President Kwame Nkrumah's administration began organizing the Independence Day celebrations for 1958. Winning groups in Fancy Dress competitions held in southern regions were rewarded with performing in the celebration parade.20 Masquefest is the only competition that has been held annually on New Year's Day since 1958, when the Winneba Masquerade Federation was created to oversee the groups and formal competition. Five groups, each with about 80-100 performers, dance in front of judges at University of Education's Advanced Teacher Training College Park (see Fig. 5). Masqueraders and stilt walkers are judged in five categories: Inspection, March Pass, Blues or Slow Dance, Highlife, and Atwim. The Federation successfully partnered with Nyce Media in 2016. Nyce provides sponsors, publicity, logistics, security, and ticket sales onsite and online. Funds were used to construct a heritage house for Fancy Dress offices and a museum. Both Carnival as Festival and Masquefest draw large crowds of Ghanaians, including those from abroad.Winneba groups create new and exciting costumes for the competitive Masquefest event that more closely align with earlier Fancy Dress costuming aesthetics (see Fig. 1). These costumes consist of pantaloons, short or long, with a shirt or tunic and perhaps a vest, boots, gloves and a headdress, all with a sense of shine and accumulation. Yet, costumes outside Winneba have become more generalized since the mid-twentieth century as an assemblage of colorful patchwork known as “Simple Dress” (Figs. 7–8).21Some Fancy Dress characters allow individuals to express modernity independently and collectively as a troupe or a larger group. The youngest performers are guided by their older friends and group leaders, while others make conscious choices about the characters and masks they will don for an event. African modernity has largely been understood as European and American oppression in contrast to African experiences during premodern contact with these forces; this occurred during periods of transatlantic slavery, colonialism, and/or imperialism. Critiques of this oppression abound and calls for cultural revivalism have blanketed postcolonial discussions. Modernity as a predicament may result in “a perspective of radical difference or alterity” and spur social change or frustration (Imafidon 2020: 172-73). In parades and on the competitive field, these forces are played out by Fancy Dressers and the costumes they wear.22 It would be a mistake to see the characters as mimicry because they are defined and articulated by local aesthetic preferences and current sociopolitical and religious situations. Characters may be fancy or fierce, or display aspects of both, as seen with the sakramodu.Initially Hollywood films were shown on the Gold Coast to children in the Christian missions, yet by the 1950s, locals were watching these films in large cinema houses. Artists were inspired to create a wide variety of characters, such as Jesus Christ, Herod, Pontius Pilate, Roman Soldier, Robin Hood, Moses, and the Red Indian (Fig. 10). Although these characters were popular in the 1950s through the ‘70s, some are rarely performed today. New characters excite the crowd and are awarded greater dashes, or tips. Characters such as Cowboys, Father Christmas, and the Roman Soldier have remained popular (Fig. 11).23 Such characters celebrate the heritage of Fancy Dress, while new ones express contemporary ideas.No celebration of the past is complete without honoring the ancestors through movement, cloth, and transformation, aspects important in both asafo and Fancy Dress. For the 2016 holidays, Francis Kodwo Coker, or “Kodzi,” created Simple Dress costumes in what he calls the kente style for the Chinese group in Saltpond (Fig. 12). Among the Akan, kente is a strip-woven cloth associated with leadership arts and historically worn by chiefs, queen mothers, and other royal dignitaries. In his invention, Kodzi has interspersed a blue-and-white patterned cloth between various badges and pleated fringe. While the cloth is not woven kente cloth, it reminds viewers of the patterns seen on older kente made with indigo weft patterns on white. This nod to local practices is met with approval from spectators and unifies the community through shared cultural pride.Modernity was reflected in past parading events in Fancy Dress and asafo through Cowboy and Indian characters, romanticized versions of North American colonization made popular through mass-produced commercial imports from North America beginning in the nineteenth century—product labels, posters, dime novels, magazines, and the cinema. According to elders, the Indian character was being performed in Ghana by the mid-1930s. The popularity of these fierce warriors spread quickly to Gold Coast ports. Fancy Indians were free to perform “in a threatening manner with guns and swords” in Axim on Christmas Day in 1935 (Ward 1935). “Red Indians” or “Wild Indians” are remembered as wearing dress similar to those in Caribbean performances from the 1930s to ‘70s. The same masks and costume materials, like peacock feathers and small bells, were provided by trading vessels that sailed to Atlantic ports.24Cowboy and Red Indian characters appeared in both Fancy Dress and Fante asafo performances from the 1950s to ‘70s. Red Indians danced in circular fashion, carried bows and arrows or rifles, and made whooping noises. Although important differences exist between Fancy Dress and asafo characters, the shared act of circular parading has healing qualities (Micots 2012: 29-30). According to Robert Farris Thompson, “Processioning around a village can mystically heal its hidden problems, can ‘cool’ the entire settlement with circling gestures of felicity and good faith …. Circling the village brings the ancestral, otherworldly power back to the center” (Thompson 1988: 20). In this way, Fancy Dressers, like other Black Atlantic carnival performers, heal the community from trauma suffered from the trans-Atlantic slave trade and colonialism.25The Morciet is a character created by performer Jacob Annobil and his troupe for Masquefest 2017 (Fig. 13). The costume for this Africanfuturist “hermaphrodite hunter”26 was inspired by a Ghanaian movie and is largely fashioned from pleather, the newest imported material on the market. The costume consists of layered pieces held together with shoe strings and is decorated with faux gold chains and plastic metallic ornaments. A long blonde braid, black high-heeled shoes, gloves, and a white wooden sword complete the ensemble. Fancy characters— the Morciet, Cowboys, American presidents, and Osama Bin Laden—are considered fierce global hunter-warriors who are powerful personas. However, the Morciet connects to the idea of an African alterity expressing a version of “Other” in the face of these foreign oppressors.Gender inversion of males performing as Fancy female characters is common. Most of the younger children in Fancy Dress outside of Winneba wear Simple Dress costumes, paired with an inexpensive, wire-mesh mask painted with a female face (Fig. 14). This is a fun expression of young children as androgynous, which is accepted in the local culture. Fancy Dress female participants wear similar costumes as males, rather than skimpy outfits. Nudity as a commercial negotiation of an inverted power structure may be part of some Black Atlantic carnivals, but this structure relates to locations with a different history (Shrum and Kilburn 1996). Ghanaians would strongly disapprove of such exposure unless it were a male wearing provocative female clothing to parody ideas of morally incorrect behavior.27 Cowgirls may wear skirts at the knee, but they can be performed by males or females (Fig. 15).Males can perform as females to comment on social issues. For example, Wedding Girl makes a serious comment on the state of relationships in the community and reinforces the social value of marriage before sex (Fig. 16, Cover). Performer Richard Bentum asked Augustina Mensah to sew a Cowgirl costume for himself and three male members in his troupe for Masquefest 2017.28 The troupe added a parasol and plastic baby doll to the costume to expand its meaning. They renamed the Cowgirl costume to Wedding Girl as they wanted to “parody … girls who have babies prior to marrying.”29The impact of Charismatic Christianity and prosperity gospel that has swept across southern Ghana in the past two decades appears in Fancy Dress.30 In one example, the Holy Cities Academy Masquerade Society (Holy Cities) in Cape Coast have danced body masks depicting Angel and Jesus Christ characters constructed in papier-mâché (Fig. 17). Fancy Dress groups along the coast of Ghana are composed of members who follow Christian, Muslim, and/ or local practices. They work in harmony together, for “God is all one.” Holy Cities performs in town during holidays, but sometimes they are hired to perform at church events. According to the group leader, “When we use Jesus and [the] Angel it will attract people to follow or join us.” He would like to convert people and compares his group's performance to those by Christian evangelists.31Fierce animal characters are popular in Fancy Dress. Kwo-Tintin, a local deity who took the form of a wild bush animal, was a favorite character performed in the 1950s to ‘70s. The name suggests an influence from the popular Belgian comic series The Adventures of Tintin. The character is remembered as “very tall with a long neck.”32 In Winneba, animal characters disappeared during Ghana's depression of the 1980s. They were revived by Red Cross No. 4 in 1992 under the banner “The Great Animal Kingdom” (see Fig. 4). Contemporary versions do not resemble Kow-Tintin. Heavy, dyed fiber or layers of cloth strips are sewn onto a cloth suit made from recycled wheat flour sacks. These characters may be further identified by spectators as ancestors, Devils, Satan, or Vampire.33 Their antics bring cheers from spectators, yet these same people keep at a safe distance. Such characters celebrate local heritage and demonstrate continuity within Fancy Dress while expressing innovation.Fancy Dress events utilize songs and movements for empowerment. Trombones and trumpets rise above the sound of a busy day in town, blasting a festive melody backed by bass and snare drums keeping the beat. As the music draws closer, performers wearing colorful costumes and masks dance joyfully down the street. Sometimes the participants are few, and other times rows and rows of masqueraders in shiny fabrics and garlands appear. People emerge from their homes and businesses onto the street. Everyone is smiling and perhaps singing; they are happy to see the parade. Spectators dance, clap, and intermingle with performers. The accumulation of sights and sounds tingle the senses and heighten the excitement that overturns the everyday into one that unifies and brings communal harmony.Brass bands, hired by every group that can afford them, play adaha, highlife, hiplife, blues, gospel, and Christmas songs today. Adaha brass bands appeared in coastal Ghana as early as the 1880s (Collins 2017: 14), invented by Fante musicians after hearing West Indian musicians use European brass instruments for music that had five pulses in 4/4 time. The British had given brass instruments to the Fante school children and taught them European 4/4 rhythms, unfamiliar to locals and unpopular. However, the Black Atlantic overlay of five pulses over 4/4 rhythm was a polyrhythm understood by the Fante, who transformed it into the local version known today as adaha.34 Fancy Dressers often dance the atwim, a quick dance step, to adaha music.Winneba masqueraders take an active part in choosing both the songs and dances their group performs. In the 2012 Masquefest competition, Tumus No. 3 members danced to the popular highlife song “Waist & Power: African Man” by 4×4. An excerpt of the lyrics demonstrates why Tumus members selected this song.The song was danced using new choreography known as Azonto. Winneba Fancy Dressers brag that they invented Azonto in 2010 when members from each of the groups went to Tamale for a national dance competition, spurring the internationally popular dance craze.35 The movements of Azonto concentrate on the lower body with bent knees that position the body closer to the earth and the ancestors in what Thompson called the “get-down quality” (1974: 13). Therefore, Fancy Dressers are channeling the power of the ancestors to empower themselves and the community, linking the past with the contemporary moment.36Rather than simply mimicking British Fancy Dress, the Ghanaian form combines multiple types of cultural performances organically and intentionally to create “an open-ended site of contestation wherein various cultural practices from different classes and ethnic groups are temporarily combined” (Craven 1991: 45). Ghanaian performers in a variety of characters in costumes influenced by sources from across the globe dance in sync with a focus on the lower body, invigorating the ground all stand upon and are buried underneath. This postcolonial play of modernity with a fierceness seen in active footwork serves a meaningful function to establish local authority and belongingness to the site, one that once was overtaken by foreign colonizers.As I have argued elsewhere, concepts of hybridity that have shaped the discourse of cultural theorists can be applied to Fancy Dress. Fancy Dressers map their performances purposely using both organic and intentional hybridity as a form of double articulation. Characters, foreign and local, merge ideas to create dialogic hybrids. According to Mikhail Bakhtin, in “organic hybridity the mixture merges … intentional hybridity sets different points of view against each other in a conflictual structure, which retains ‘… a certain elemental, organic energy and openendedness’“ (Bakhtin 1981: 361; Young 1995: 21-22). This energy is seen in the dancing, especially in atwim. Homi K. Bhabha, building upon Bakhtin, uses his concept to understand hybridity in the context of colonial and postcolonial encounters. Bhabha explains that “colonial mimicry … is constructed around an ambivalence … the sign of a double articulation; a complex strategy of reform, regulation, and discipline, which ‘appropriates’ the Other as it visualizes power” (1994: 122). Thus, a Cowboy or other “Other” like the Red Indian is appropriated as characters that are at once foreign and local-ized through costume and mask artistry and choreography (Figs. 11, 18). Applying Bakhtin's doubled form of hybridity offers a significant dialectical model for understanding how carnival performance is a contestatory activity, one that positions cultural differences against each other dialogically to promote social cohesion.Dialogic hybridity is exemplified in Fancy Dress performance by the Accra-based group named Ghana City Masquerader Union (Union). This group shares characteristics with other Ghanaian Fancy Dressers, yet also links to Afro-Bahian performances in the Republic of Benin and in Salvador, Brazil. Their characters, music, and choreography demonstrate the way performers can celebrate and resist simultaneously in a public arena.Union is organized around the Nelson family, with a family head designated as the King, who also leads the Fancy Dress group. The title of King is a significant difference between Union and other Fancy Dress groups, who are led by a president. Nelson family members describe themselves as Tabom,37 descendants of Afro-Brazilians who migrated to Accra in the 1830s (Essien 2016: xxi, 7, 11, 31-32). In Brazil, once a Portuguese colony, Black King celebrations began in the eighteenth century, and by the nineteenth century the kings became known as “kings of Kongo,” relating to the Kongo Kingdom in Central Africa, where a number of the enslaved had originated (de Mello e Souza 2015: 39). Catholic brotherhoods in Brazil gave enslaved Africans the opportunity to build new identities and create new rituals, including feasts, coronations, and processions, called congadas. Brazilian congadas acknowledged a connection with the Christian Kongo Kingdom, which historically maintained its autonomy from the Portuguese (Fromont 2019: 117, 120).Appearance of the Tabom King on the streets of Accra, once the site of the British colonial administration for the Gold Coast Colony, demonstrates a retaking of power from these former foreign rulers. The current king of Union, Ezekiel Fortunato Nelson, was dressed in 1976 as “King of City” in a costume of silk and eyelet (Fig. 19). His crown was fashioned from cardboard and covered in silk. He held a cord with a ball at the end. The role of king links Union participants and spectators to their Tabom heritage and to Brazil.38 Both Fancy Dress leadership titles, king and president, allude to power in the face of an imposed European national political authority.Union dance moves include performing in a circular fashion around the musicians in some of the courtyards. Circular choreography is reminiscent of the Bron masquerade in Odumase wi