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The Effervescent Carnival: Performance, Context, and Mediation at Notting Hill

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2009

Gavin Carver
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Abstract

The Notting Hill Carnival is now Europe's largest street festival, celebrating the music and popular arts of a variety of cultures. Not so long ago, the event – which sometimes culiminated in violence between the police and carnival goers – was widely perceived as both threatening and marginal. But more recently the size, success, and high media profile of the carnival have given it a ‘responsible’ image – and won sponsorship from a variety of commercial concerns. In this article Gavin Carver Explores these developments in the meditation and context of the carnival, and asks whether the sponsorrship has contributed towards the containment of the carnival, transforming a socio/cultural event into mere decorative spectacle. GAvin Carver is a Lecturer in Drama at the University of Kent.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Theatre Quarterly , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , February 2000 , pp. 34 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2000

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References

Notes and References

1. Commercial sponsors have provided funding for individual elements of the carnival in the past, and the Arts Council of Great Britain (now of England) has supported the event as a whole, but it seems that these are qulitatively and quantitively different from a commercial titled sponsorship of the whole event.

2. From a poster outside the carnival headquarters, quoted in The Times, 31 August 1976.

3. See Clarke, John, ‘Style’, in Resistance through Rituals, ed. Hall, Stuart and Jefferson, Tony (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 175–91Google Scholar; and Gottdeiner, Mark, ‘Hegemony and Mass Culture: a Semiotic Approach’, American Journal of Sociology, XC, No. 5 (1985), p. 979–1001CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4. For Example, Fiske, John, Understanding Popular Culture (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989)Google Scholar.

5. There was in fact a small local celbration based upon a more traditionally English model in existence in the area prior to this date; however, 1966 was when the carnival as we know it today took embryonic form.

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7. large, static PA systems, located in the side streets around the processional route and playing a variety of musical styles. Individual sound systems will often have a specific repertorie and sometimes a loyal following. They are largely based on Jamaican traditions.

8. For a full analysis, see Pyrce, Everton, ‘Culture from Below: Politics, Resistance, and Leadership in the Notting Hill Gate Carnival: 1976–1978’, in Black Politics in Britain, ed. Goulbourne, Harry (Aldershot; Vermont: Avebury, 1990), p. 130–48Google Scholar.

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10. Claire Holder, interview with the author, London, 25 May 1996.

11. Pryce, op. cit., p. 132.

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14. There have of course been examples of moderately didactic mas presentation, but these constitute the exception rather than the rule.

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17. Holder, op. cit.

18. The Mangrove Restaurant was a cultural centre for West Indians in the area and was the spiritual home of the carnival.

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23. Ibid.

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36. Quoted in Smith, op. cit.

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39. Kershaw, op. cit., p. 73.

40. There have been plans to include Hyde Park in the processional route, but the organizers deny any intention of wholly relocating the carnival there.

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42. The deliciously ironic connotations of Virgin are equally at odds with the carnal pleasures of carnival, although in this case the company did not request a named sponsorship.

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44. Furthermore, Brason – or to be more accurate, our perception of Brason – embodies similar tensions to those operating in carnival. His balancing act is to sustain an image (and substance)of caring capitalism, to make enterprise look responsible, fun, and almost charitable. Brason, who once published the Sex Pistols infamous ‘God Save the Queen’ on his Virgin record label, has more recently been involved in more mainstream projects at the heart of the new-look Britain. Like the carnival, his history seems to have been one of reconciling idealism and even radicalism within a capitalist, commodity, and image-oriented context. Virgin Atlantic's sponsorship of the carnival may have lasted only one year, but in some ways the partnership seems quite apt.

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54. McMillan, op. cit., p. 30.

55. Ibid.

56. The Times, 28 August 1989, p. 1.

57. The full list of such articles from The Times is far too long for inclusion. However, the following provides a fair indication of the trend: 30 Augusr 1976, p. 2; 31 August 1976, p. 1, 2; 1 September 1976, p. 1, 12; 30 August 1982, p. 1; 31 August 1982, p. 2; 1 September 1982, p. 3, 9; 1 September 1987, p. 1; 2 September 1987, p. 1, 10, 11; 20 August 1989, p. 4; 29 August 1989, p. 1; 17 August 1992, p. 8; 1 September 1992, p. 1; 2 September 1992, p. 5.

58. It is notable that until 1975, when there was one article and one photograph, The Times remained silent about the carnival. However, in 1976 there were thirtynine separate pieces, sixty in 1977, and forty-eight in 1988. The coverage is fullest in the year after any violent confrontation, and the overwhelming majority of these articles, written before the event, report on how the organizers and the police are convinced that the situation will be better in the forthcoming event.

59. Nelson, Steve, ‘Walt Disney's EPCOT and the World Fair Performance Tradition’, The Drama Review, XXX (1986), p. 106–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

60. Pryce, op. cit.

61. Ibid., p. 146.

62. For example, See the discussions in Blair, op. cit.; Rose, Tricia, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (Hanover, New Hampshire: Weslyan, 1993), p. 17Google Scholar; Thornton, Sarah, ‘Moral Panic: the Media and British Rave Culture’, in Microphone Fiends, ed. Ross, Andrew, Rose, Tricia (London; New York: Routledge, 1993), p. 176–92Google Scholar.

63. McMillan, op. cit., p. 32.

64. Hobson, op. cit., p. 54.

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68. The Devil's Advocate, Folio Productions for Channel Four, produced by Thompson, Charles, 6 09. 1995Google Scholar.

69. Stallybrass, op. cit., p. 15.

70. Cohen, op. cit., p. 130.