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David Belle (born 29 April 1973) is the founder of Parkour and an actor, film
choreographer, and stunt coordinator. Belle founded Parkour based on his
training and the teachings from his father Raymond Belle. The discipline has
since spread around the world and now has adherents in every country. Belle came
to fame via his videos which spread on the internet and also via his film work
including his most well known films, District 13 and District 13: Ultimatum,
which were written and produced by Luc Besson. Belle has also worked on Babylon
A.D. with Vin Diesel, Prince of Persia with Jake Gyllenhaal, Colombiana with Zoe
Saldana, and he is currently working on Malavita with Robert De Niro.
Contents
Life
David Belle was born and raised in Fécamp, France. He descends from a modest
family in the suburbs of Paris. His grandfather Gilbert Kitten, father Raymond
Belle, and brother Jean-François Belle have been highly skilled rescuers in the
French military fire service.
In 1984, at the age of 11 Belle moved to Lisses, France. He made close friends
with a group of teenagers with a similar physical passions who began training
with him. Some of the friends that trained with David would later become known
as the Yamakasi. Later in life David spent time in the military and fire brigade
with aspirations of following in his father's and grandfather's footsteps. He
left soon after for personal reasons in order to dedicate himself to Parkour.
He later joined the Troupes de marine in Vannes, where he received a promotion,
a gymnastic agility certificate of honour, and champion records for regimental
rope-climbing (which his father had once held) and the Essonne obstacle course.
He has however said that his taste and love for adventure and freedom did not go
well with the regimented life of the military.
Upon completing his national service, he worked in various professions including
a warehouse worker, security guard and furniture salesman. He also spent 3
months in India studying kung fu. After his return he continued his training in
Parkour and filmed footage of his capabilities which he later turned into the
famous Speed Air Man video. In 1997 the Stage 2 team (Francis Marroto, Pierre
Sled and Pierre Salviac) were shown a video of Belle and decided to film a news
feature about parkour.
In filming this news feature the term Yamakasi was used for the first time in
connection with the team. David did not approve of the name and felt like it did
not give credit to his father, so he split from the group after the feature.
Later David would go on to train other students who gave themselves the name 'tracer.'
The spelling was later adapted to 'traceur', and has since been used to define a
practitioner of Parkour.
Belle was first introduced to his acting career in a meeting with Hubert Koundé
(La Haine), in order to discuss the success of Parkour on the big screen. He
then began developing his acting ability with the play Pygmalion, and has since
been successful in obtaining a number of roles mostly in French films and
promotions. Belle has been featured in promotional videos for Tina Turner, and
Iam. He has starred in "Les gens du voyages" and "Un monde meilleur", followed
by "L'Engrenages" and "Femme Fatale", as well as "Les rivières pourpres 2",
starring Jean Reno. After filming several more advertisements and promotions for
the BBC, Nissan, Canon, and Nike, Belle was contacted by Luc Besson (director of
Nikita, and The Fifth Element) regarding co-starring as lead actor with Cyril
Raffaelli in the action movie District 13, followed by the sequel District 13:
Ultimatum.
On 16 April 2012 Belle announced in a status on his Facebook that he was soon
going to become a father to a boy. On 18 December, he posted a picture
introducing the Parkour community and world to his son Isaïah.
Filmography
Acting
"Louis Page" as Laurent (1 episode, 2000)
Engrenage, L' as Le créancier (2001)
Femme Fatale as French cop (2002)
French: Banlieue 13 – Ultimatum as Leïto (2004)
Métal Hurlant Chronicles as Red Light (2012) (1 episode)
Brick Mansions as Lino (a US-marketed English language remake of District 13) (2014)
Stunts
BBC One's advertising campaign (2002)
Canon commercial
Nike commercial
Nissan commercial
Crimson Rivers 2: Angels of the Apocalypse (2003)
Transporter 2 (2005)
Prince of Persia : The Sands of Time (2010)
Covert Affairs (2011)
Colombiana (2011)
Media figure and business interests
In spite of Belle's fame he has stayed largely out of the media light over the
years. His last well known appearance was made in when he appeared as a guest at
the New Yorker Festival in 2007. Belle also interviewed for the article "No
Obstacles" written by Alec Wilkinson which was published in April 2007.[4]
Belle currently endorses the clothing company Take Flight.[5]
David Belle's Parkour groups
Les Traceurs
Belle was the leader of a group called "Les traceurs" which also included well
known practitioner Stephane Vigroux. The name has since been used to refer to
those that practice Parkour.
PAWA (former member)
David helped form the Parkour World Association, but he stopped the group for
lack of cohesion.
Yamakasi
Contrary to popular belief, David was never a member of the Yamakasi group. He
was a part of the group that later called themselves the Yamakasi, but the group
chose the name Yamakasi during the filming of the Stade 2 news feature, credited
as the first news feature about Parkour. Belle was against the name and wanted
to call the practice Parkour. He then split from the group after the feature
because he felt that naming took away from the recognition of the discipline and
its history.