Tidalectic Encounters

An extract from the spoken-word performance Tidalectic Encounters , this performance considers the parallels, contradictions and differences between the re-presentation of African diaspora male bodies in England and across the continents, from Jamaica to Johannesburg, Harlem to Hackney. The title of the performance references Kamau Brathwaite’s ‘tidalectics’ concept (1974), where the wave is used as a metaphor to describe the continual forward, back and forward again cyclical motion of people and their mutating creolized cultures. This extract presents Tex’s Story – a section of an oral history reflection. Tex and I first met at the Sharpe End community centre in Hackney, London, almost twenty years ago. It was an extremely blustery, January afternoon, according to my notes. He was not happy about being seen in his tracksuit; he had planned to go home and change before our appointment, but the wind and rain in London that day were such that this had not been possible. Tex came to England from the Caribbean in 1944 at the age of 15, without his mother’s knowledge, having ‘borrowed’ his father’s ‘name’ in order to travel alone, though underage.