PROJECT 2: SPORT, DIASPORA AND DEVELOPMENT

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SOLUNA

Soluna mathematical techniques and approaches to create strategies in Capoeira and Football.

It is based on the principles of stimulating self-organization, producing coherence rather than rigid styles, generating information sharing, the whole and the parts co-evolving, do not predict the future, create the future through pro-active channelling of opponents and actively changing rules of engagement.

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ONSIDE

ONSIDE Fair Trade Research & Development, an applied research project aimed at promoting Corporate Social Responsibility/Public Education on Fair Trade and Child Labour, including market research towards the introduction of Fair Trade Soccer Balls to Trinidad and Tobago and the wider Caribbean.

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THE REVOLUTION

(This flim is copyrighted and is an authorised biographical feature based on the life and times of Olympic cyclist, Mr. Leslie King.)

The Revolution chronicles the ups and downs and back agains of the struggle for place, position and power by blacks in Trinidad from the late 1950s to the late 1970s. It is centred on the enigmatic figure of Belmont-grown Trinidadian cyclist, Leslie King. The film is also a stinging critique of racial and sexual attitudes in the Caribbean in the post-WWII era, influenced by foreign media and internal power struggles, and raises questions on the legacy of the Baby Boom generation for Caribbean people living in the age of HIV/AIDS.

The film begins with a short narration leading into Leslie’s childhood race to outrun clashing steelbands and streethangers who victimize his ‘not-black-enoughness’ in 1950s Belmont/Port-of-Spain. His only weapon, his bicycle propels him suddenly and ironically into the position of an icon for the struggles and aspirations for mobility and equality by blacks of the time. His clashes with local white and national hero Roger Gibbon, also his senior, as well as his very attempt to rise to the top of an elite and elitist sport such as cycling causes a major stir. The slowly growing social divide is galvanized by his victimization and continued victories in the sport.

Using carnaval characters and circular storytelling, the film centres on Leslie’s response to this challenge, as well as the valiant and successful attempts by blacks in Trinidad to raise funs for his further training….in Europe. This element of the story is contrasted with Leslie’s increasing access to the world of colourless/monied privilege in Trinidad as a sporting star. This element of the film introduces a display of prevailing attitudes towards sex and sexuality of the time, including homophobia, peer pressure, drug use, and the pressure for a budding champion to be a prolific lover.

The film then contrasts Leslie’s participation on the world stage with growing dissent and racial/class divides in Trinidad- culminating with a series of historic protests, strikes and marches in the early 1970s. The film draws to a close with the increasing fashionisation of ‘black’ and the influx of a consumerist culture in oil-rich Trinidad from which Leslie steadily retreats. The film concludes with the figure of a young man leaving the country, perhaps for the last time.

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INLAWS AND OUTLAWS: RELATED PUBLICATIONS

2005     “The Dreaming Fields: Football, Life and Labour in the African Diaspora”

Oral and Pictoral Records Periodical (OPREP)

West Indiana Division, Main Library

University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, August 2005