Three towering moko jumbies stroll up behind the stage, as if on cue, dressed in suits of glow-in-the-dark yellow and electric blue. The sun is setting on the second and final day of ChaleWote, Accra’s annual street art festival, but energies show no sign of fading as Burkinabe band Siaka Diarra (image immediately below) streams the “polyrhythmic madness” promised in the festival program, djembe gyrating slowly-quickly-slowly against unpredictable percussion.

The sudden appearance of men on stilts swings eyes and cameras away from the music, but the moko jumbies do not steal the show; only enhance it as they walk casually around the stage, past the food and drink stalls that line the perimeter of the concert space and out into the festivities beyond. At ChaleWote the time/space lines between different performances and exhibitions, and the larger space in which they are situated, constantly blur and stir into one pulsating continuity of creative expression.

When the Takoradi Masquerade parades by a few minutes later, Siaka Diarra spontaneously swings their tempo towards the passing beat. As the show comes to an end, a cross-dressing dancer jumps on stage to drop moves that twerking can only hope to dream of becoming one day. This is not a festival for those who like experiences folded neatly, or art served with hors d’oeuvres via a stick up their buttocks. That said, it’s a festival for everyone.

ChaleWote takes place at the seaside site of the first Ga settlement in the Accra area–a spiritual mecca for several centuries, known as Ga Mashie until it became the capital of colonial invasion and was christened Jamestown. The festival has been organized every year since 2011 by the “subversively African” arts collective Accra[Dot]Alt. It brings together artists from Ghana and beyond, and thousands of merry makers, for a weekend of visual art/music/fashion/theatre/extreme sports/photography/spoken word/film that run down a long stretch of Jamestown’s John Atta-Mills High Street all the way to the shore.

A painful history rests beneath the festivities. “Under Jamestown is another town,” explains Mantse Aryeequaye, Accra[Dot]Alt co-founder. “There was a lot of resistance from the community to the slave trade, so they didn’t want people to see that they were transporting humans. There are houses with secret tunnels that lead all the way to the shore where they would put the slaves on a ship.”

Today, above ground, Jamestown is a mix of fishing neighborhoods, local enterprises and dilapidated colonial structures. Its history as a hub of oppression – but originally, of pre-colonial spiritual symbolism – lends itself to what Mantse describes as “a new expression, to reimagining the space”.

The theme of ChaleWote 2014 is “Death: An Eternal Dream into Limitless Rebirth.”

“Why Death?” asks the festival program. “It surrounds us in Ghana. Funerals every weekend are important social affairs.” Festival-goers need not worry about missing out on the weekend funeral scene – Death is exquisitely represented at ChaleWote 2014. Collaborative artworks portray perceptions of death and rebirth. An eerie-beautiful procession of pallbearers carries fantasy coffins designed by Ghanaian sculptor Pa Joe. “Enjoyment after death”, a performance installation by Serge Attukwei and GoLokal, examines Ghanaian funeral culture and celebration of the dead.

Rebirth, too, is celebrated through the art, which seeks to “breathe life into new histories, possibilities, hopes and desires…. stories that are thrilling, passionate and charismatic”. It is this spirit – the spirit of born-again creativity rocking in beat with history – that makes ChaleWote what it is: free, in many senses of the word.

At the lighthouse end of High Street, across from the main concert space and against a backdrop of art and poetry murals, Rolla Wondaland skaters create a runway. Dozens of people line up along the street to cheer gravity-defying champions, or whoosh a collective wince if one crashes into the ground. On the adjacent beach, Action Accra’s “Eco playground” showcases art made from recycled objects. Transforming discarded objects into objects of beauty is a recurrent theme in the festival: ranging from Maame Adjei’s “Crate-ive Seating” that repurposes obsolete crates into quirky benches, to a parade of brides clad in fashionably recycled plastic bags, designed by Ghanaian artist Fatric Bewong.

The post office building is draped with Ibrahim Mahama’s “Social Reality”, an installation made from coal sacks and wax print panels and described in the festival program as a work of “relational aesthetics…an extension of the body irrespective of its ‘true relationship’ with the site and its history”. I’m not sure what that means, but my god, it’s beautiful. “If only street art give orgasms…lol!” reads one Facebook comment. Well if it wants to learn, this might be a good place to start…

Throughout the day, Social Reality and other artworks double up as backdrops and props for a series of impromptu photo shoots. While dishing up orgasmic art, #ChaleWote2014 multitasks as unabashed host of the selfie Olympics. From supermodel poses with theatre troupes to tongues reaching for nipples in murals, there is a spontaneous energy around the art that encourages interaction on any level at all.

The children of Ga Mashie, inadvertent hosts of the festival, are no exceptions to this. Be it through curious stares or hawking goods, clambering over artwork or clinging to the bike of Wanlov the Kubolor, one pillar of the visionary Ghanaian hip-hop duo FoknBois, their presence is felt strongly. A new acquaintance warns me against getting too friendly: “these children who live in Jamestown are the most stubborn children in Ghana …” he stops and thinks about it “… in the world. Everyone knows about them, they are so stubborn!”

Their presence sometimes creates friction, some people shooing them away harshly when they get too excited. There are those who, Mantse comments, “don’t have the approach of minding the space because it belongs to other people, so if the kids are bothering them, they tell them to fuck off.” But the children of Ga Mashie, he points out, “are not regular kids. That comes from their surroundings – they are forced to be tough at a very early stage. So they come into a space and do what they want to do”.

In that sense, too, the kids at ChaleWote are right at home. Come into the space and do what you want to do seems to be one of the many unofficial mottos of the festival. “Artists who did not even answer the call use the space as a platform,” muses Mantse. “Things more or less follow the schedule, but what makes it even more exciting are these random performances that are not planned, are not part of the official program, just people coming in and expressing themselves. As we grow, we will need to find creative ways of accommodating that, because it’s important – to make space for schedules, but also for spontaneous things to happen. That’s what helps to create this really intense energy that the festival has. It’s just people showing up and creating.”

Outside Bible House, the YoYo Tinz hip hop booth serves gospel from 10 in the morning, DJs giving way to a range of live performances as the day progresses. Graffiti artists – and anyone who cares to join in – paint the adjoining street. Flamenco dancing and motorbike stunts, acrobatics and theatre, capoeira and street boxing, are among the acts popping up at various times and spaces across the festival. A mini film festival with colorful fabric for walls is constructed in the middle of a compound. There, in my search for yet another installation, I stumble upon a crumbling but stubborn staircase, which ambles down to a serene nook by the sea. Blissfully lost, I sit still for a while.

ChaleWote is best played by ear. When I surrender and stop studying the schedule and map like some kind of neurotic Swiss navigator, it’s a pleasant confusion that ensues. Why are these incredibly dapper gentlemen walking past me as though on an invisible catwalk, with boom boxes under their arms? Is that chocolate sitting on the outstretched palms of that gold-painted man? To where are the writers from the poetry workshop I visited earlier marching in fluid synchronicity? (“We’re performing our poems at all the stages, come! You were at the workshop, aren’t you a writer? Don’t you want to read something?”)

Several years ago, recalls Mantse, “the creative community in Ghana was mostly concentrated in hotels, museums, embassies – that’s where you found art. It was all very elitist, very exclusive…it does nothing for people to have a few in one small space who are supposed to represent everyone else. That’s why ChaleWote is important – it’s public, it’s free, you’re creating a museum in the middle of the street, and everyone can take part.”

It also creates employment, as the residents of Jamestown – who are extensively involved in ChaleWote’s operations and performances – benefit from the festival and from the spike in tourism that it has generated. “This is one of the ways we can create opportunities, especially at a time when Ghana went from being an ‘Africa Rising’ star to getting an IMF bailout,” says Mantse. “The government doesn’t support artists, so if we want a thriving creative community it’s up to us to build structures for that. And because of the DIY nature of the festival, it also has this DIY energy around it – people think of amazing stuff, it encourages them to create outside their comfort zones.”

The practical organization of ChaleWote also lives outside the conventional comfort zone. “I doff my hat to Accra[Dot]Alt for birthing such an enthralling event”, says Eugene Owusu, a self-proclaimed “arts freak” whom I meet at the festival. If only it was well supported by the government of Ghana and corporate organizations, he adds, “ChaleWote would become the world’s number one festival that all and sundry would look forward to every year”. Currently, ChaleWote is mostly funded out of pocket by Accra[Dot]Alt, with contributions in kind from various institutions. Corporate sponsorship is conspicuous in its absence – at least, its physical absence. Outside the small stalls set up by food and fashion vendors, no branding is visible anywhere.

But cyberspace is an open playground. So when sponsorship talks between Accra[Dot]Alt and Guinness come to an unceremonious end, the international beer brand still pushes its #MadeOfBlack online ad campaign on the back of ChaleWote, by contracting prominent Ghanaian bloggers to attach the hashtag to their pics and updates of the festival. I believe the official legal term for this is “swag-cyberjackery”– the arrogance with which corporate money appropriates community creativity – but still, the show must go on.

And on it goes, and on. In the courtyard of Brazil House (which has a history of Brazil’s African slave industry mounted on the walls) Bright Backwerh presents “Immaculate con-tra-ception/Race 11/Untitled”: an installation of wooden silhouettes and news clippings that tell stories of racism in football and life. Around the corner, Sabolai Radio – the music-centered sister festival of ChaleWote – gives us a taste of things to come in their upcoming festival (19 – 21 December 2014). Across the road, Pretty Period, a photography exhibition made of portraits of festival-goers, celebrates the beauty of dark-skinned women. The fashion market is Satan to my wallet, the food market Lucifer to my belly, both in the most heavenly of ways.

“How much did you pay for that? [laughter] Hehhh, chale tomorrow you will cry! I’ll take you somewhere you pay just 10 cedis for the same thing!”

“Let me tell you where Ebola came from – whites made it in a lab. Think about it…”

“Are you on Facebook? Write your name here so I can tag you in my photos. Can I come visit you in Rwanda?”

As evening falls, the festival is supposed to be winding up but the crowd only gets thicker. I am slightly overwhelmed by everything I’ve absorbed in the past 8 hours, which is still not everything the festival had to offer, and curiosity drives me up the street for one final lap. The official events are winding down and melting into several parties clustered on different corners, each blasting their choice of music to an animated crowd. This is where tehning up comes to tehn up, and by the time I tehn back, I have experienced such an acute overdose of good times that I have to go home immediately.

Yes, home. Abruptly like that. Because there’s only so much a woman can take before exploding into infinite shards of creative bliss. So I can’t say how ChaleWote2014 ended, but my sources tell me they jammed past the witching hour, and as for me, I can tell you this: start saving if you can, and planning where you can. Because if you miss #ChaleWote2015, hehhh, chale. You will cry!

* Photo credits: Accra[Dot]Alt and Walter Adama n Selorm Atikpoe,TalkOfGh.com, Ghanyobi Mantey, Live 91.9FM.