‘Chale Wote’ Street Art Festival is a Ghanaian-originated platform that brings together art, music, dance, and performance onto the streets.
This year’s edition of the festival marks ten (10) years of its existence since it was first launched in 2011 to promote the appreciation of diverse forms of art in Ghana.
‘Chale Wote’ Street Art Festival is a Ghanaian-originated platform that brings together art, music, dance, and performance onto the streets.
This year’s edition of the festival marks ten (10) years of its existence since it was first launched in 2011 to promote the appreciation of diverse forms of art in Ghana.
The recently concluded Festival took place with a meditative procession through the streets of Jamestown from Monday, August 15 to Sunday 21 with spectacular displays of splendour, pomp, and pageantry. The colourful event was energized, refreshed and serenaded by the Ga traditional leader.
During the launch, a traditional priestess with her acolytes, draped in all white linen and adorned with strands of purifying green leaves, led the pouring of libation to begin what was distinctly a spiritual undertaking.
Before the procession, a drum and dance ensemble from the Cultural Centre, in their traditional “Fugu” apparel, kept the ancestral memories of the people of Ga Mashie alive with ecstatic dance moves.
The procession, among other things, highlighted the complex history of Jamestown and its central importance to the making and development of Accra and the diaspora.
The history of the enslaved who had walked through the alleyways of Jamestown to ships on the shores was remembered.
Chale Wote Festival had two-time Grammy nominee, Rocky Dawuni, and other diasporans partaking, moving all the way to the Ussher Fort – the ancestral home of the people of Ga Mashie – where some invocations and the pouring of libations were made.
Photo Credit: Paul Addo
