Kakaamotobe: The 20th-Century History and Culture of Fancy Dress Carnival in Ghana

FAIN: HB-262811-19

Courtnay Micots
Florida A&M University (Tallahassee, FL 32307-3102)

Research and writing leading to publication of a book about the history and culture of Kakaamotobe, a West African carnival, from 1899 to the present.

Kakaamotobe, or Fancy Dress, is a lively carnival that has been performed in southern Ghana, West Africa, for more than a century, yet few scholars have analyzed this vibrant and engaging art form. The purpose of this project is to complete the first book on West African carnival. Fancy Dress is significant as an art form that blends local and foreign performance traditions to express public commentary on pop culture; social and cultural mores; and local, national and international politics and economy. A vital creative expression of the lower classes, the carnival is both comedic entertainment and a necessary regenerative force in Ghanaian culture. I will combine extensive field research gathered over nine years with secondary sources in art history, history, culture and politics in order to situate this artistic practice across Ghana and in comparison with other Black Atlantic carnivalesque traditions.

Associated Products

Chapter 7. The Afro-Brazilian Contribution to Fancy Dress (Book Section)
Title: Chapter 7. The Afro-Brazilian Contribution to Fancy Dress
Author: Courtnay Micots
Editor: n/a
Abstract: The slave trade, which transported Africans to the Americas, created a special relationship between the continents, resulting in a “Black Atlantic” culture. This investigation into the transference of carnival between West Africa and Bahia demonstrates one aspect of Black Atlantic culture and the importance of studying Fancy Dress as an element in a vast network of creative energy. Fancy Dress demonstrates the migration of costume aesthetics, fancy and fierce characters, and performed spiritual reverence and political resistance.
Year: 2019
Access Model: available when the book is published
Publisher: n/a
Book Title: Kakaamotobe: Fancy Dress Carnival in Ghana
ISBN: n/a

Chapter 8. Fancy Dress and Silliness: Transformation of Power and Global Modernity (Book Section)
Title: Chapter 8. Fancy Dress and Silliness: Transformation of Power and Global Modernity
Author: Courtnay Micots
Editor: n/a
Abstract: Fancy Dress in Ghana is greatly indebted to both African masquerade and Black Atlantic carnivals. It was the thousands of Africans who were forcibly transported to the Americas in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries who developed the first Black Atlantic carnivals, a new art form resulting from the mixing of African and European performance traditions. Carnival then traveled to African ports during colonialism in the late-nineteenth century where it was mixed again with local African practices. Black Atlantic carnivals share traits inherited from the overturning of their socio-political world and to form a unique bond. Because performance aspires to both replace the old and embody something new, black carnivals emphasize the link to modernity while unraveling its connection to Western ideas of racism and civilization. Therefore, carnival is an amorphic art form that flows across oceans and continents that was and continues to be employed to heal cultural and political trauma in the Black Atlantic.
Year: 2019
Access Model: available when the book is published
Publisher: n/a
Book Title: Kakaamotobe: Fancy Dress Carnival in Ghana
ISBN: n/a

Kakaamotobe: Fancy Dress Carnival in Ghana (Book)
Title: Kakaamotobe: Fancy Dress Carnival in Ghana
Author: Courtnay Micots
Year: 2021
Primary URL: https://www.worldcat.org/search?q=1793643091
Primary URL Description: WorldCat entry (1793643091)
Publisher: Lexington Books. An Imprint of Rowman and Littlefield
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 1793643091

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