The festival takes place beside a dungeon. In Cape Coast, where the castle once held enslaved Africans before they were shipped across the Atlantic, PANAFEST gathers artists, scholars and visitors from Africa and the diaspora. It was first held in 1992, and it grew from an idea by one of Ghana’s greatest playwrights, Efua Sutherland.
Efua Sutherland
Efua Theodora Sutherland was a Ghanaian playwright, director and cultural activist who founded the Ghana Drama Studio and wrote plays such as The Marriage of Anansewa. In the 1980s, she proposed a festival that would use theatre and the arts to confront the history of slavery and reunite Africans on the continent with those of the diaspora.
1992
PANAFEST, the Pan-African Historical Theatre Festival, was first held in 1992. Cape Coast and the surrounding Central Region, with its forts and castles, became its home.
Emancipation Day
Ghana also marks Emancipation Day on 1 August, the date associated with the abolition of slavery in the British colonies in the 1830s. Ceremonies are held at Assin Manso, where enslaved Africans were taken to bathe at a river before being marched to the coast. The two events are often celebrated together.
What happens
The festival includes theatre, music, dance, durbars, academic colloquia and reverential night ceremonies at the castle. Visitors from the Caribbean, the Americas and Europe take part in rituals of remembrance, including walks through the “door of no return”.
Reconnecting
For many African Americans and Caribbean visitors, PANAFEST is a journey of identity. Some describe it as returning home. Ghana’s later Year of Return in 2019 built on the relationships PANAFEST had developed.
Challenges
Over the years, the festival has faced funding problems and irregular scheduling. Some editions were smaller than planned. Organisers describe it as the longest consistently celebrated Pan-African festival in the world.
Sutherland’s centenary
In 2024, PANAFEST and Emancipation Day events honoured the centenary of Efua Sutherland’s birth, recognising her role in shaping the festival.
Cape Coast Castle
Cape Coast Castle was one of the largest slave-trading forts on the Gold Coast. Built and expanded by European powers and controlled by the British for much of its history, it held enslaved Africans in dark dungeons before they were taken through a gate to ships waiting offshore. Today it is a UNESCO World Heritage site and museum. Visitors who walk through the dungeons and stand at the “door of no return” often describe it as one of the most moving experiences of their lives. PANAFEST draws much of its emotional power from that setting.
Cape Coast’s castle was built to send Africans away. PANAFEST uses the same walls to welcome their descendants back, which is perhaps the most powerful thing a festival can do.
