atlantic carnivals

“Carnival, for us, was important. it was something that took charge with a very strong traditional view. Consequently, the carnival singing encouraged us, informed us and educated us “[Bonga, angolan musician].

By magic or cunning, Carnival - an ancient festival in Europe - has become a major Black atlantic cultural event. Be it in the Americas or Africa, the carnival found people with different festival traditions and became a leading symbol for the black world.

Mixing repertoires, Black atlantic carnivals flourished with new clothes and acquired different forms in places where they developed. Questioning matters of aesthetics, socio-economics, political, ethnic, religious, technological and philosophical, this festival is a rich reservoir of ideas.

The communication and cultural exchange facilitated by the internet allow black cultures to experience a process of diverse and cosmopolitan cultural revival, based on information between artistic and behavioural repertoires.

These cultural exchanges in the post-internet black world is what i call the third diaspora, the virtual displacement of texts, sounds and images caused by the communication of the black people, powered by electronic globalization and the web, digitally connecting the cultural repertoires of the atlantic cities.

Through websites that host videos that can be freely browsed one learns about the carnivals of Brazil, Santiago de Cuba, Port-au-Prince in Haiti, Port of spain, Trinidad, New Orleans, in the United States, Luanda, in Angola, and London, England (in districts with high Caribbean population), to name just a few of the manifestations that have become worldwide media spectacles.

Among the diverse aesthetic references of the black world, the carnival is perhaps one of the most important cultural icons of the West. It is in the minds of people who move physically or virtually to experience the carnival to live and get to know the rhythms and body movements. After all, the atlantic carnivals show the extraordinary wealth which is triggered by the force of the African Diaspora and its cultural production.

Goli Guerreiro * Edits the blog www.terceiradiaspora.blogspot.com from Bahia Salvador, is a traveller and amateur photographer who recorded scenes of daily life in the atlantic cities about which he writes and directs audiovisual shows. She has a post-doctorate in urban anthropology and is the author of the book the Story of the drums - african-pop music from salvador (Publisher 34, 2000) and Third Diaspora - black cultures in the atlantic world (Publisher Corrupio, 2010)