Panafest Takes Off

Cape Coast, July 28, GNA- Ghanaian culture and tradition, were on Monday, displayed at their best, when paramount chiefs, queen mothers and other sub-chiefs in the Cape Coast and Edina traditional areas, were paraded through the streets of Cape Coast, for a colourful durbar at the forecourt of the Cape Coast castle, for the official opening of Panafest 2003.

All the chiefs and queen mothers, were clad in beautifully coloured kente cloths, and gold ornaments, with the exception of the paramount chief of Elmina, Nana Kodwo Condua VI, who was dressed in white cloth, and sporting a crown of leaves.

The procession, which saw the chiefs displayed their dancing prowess in their palanquins, amidst fontonfrom drumming, drew a crowd of curious residents, who claimed they were not aware of the occasion, to the durbar grounds.

The foreign participants, most of them Africans from the Diaspora, such as the United States, Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago, as well as from sister countries like Nigeria and Benin, also turned out in their numbers for the occasion.

Among the cultural troupes that entertained the gathering, alongside traditional drumming, were the Harambee dance troupe from the US, a group from Barbados and local groups like the 'Twerampong traditional and the Ashanti dance theatre, both of them based in Cape Coast.

The gathering, was particularly thrilled by the performances, of the Group from the US, which held them spell-bound with traditional dances similar to the dances of people in the northern part of the country, and cheered and applauded loudly.

Some residents the GNA spoke to, said the low patronage of the festival by local people, was because they had been sidelined in the planning of the festival, and urged the Panafest Foundation to correct that anomaly.