David Belle

David Belle
Born	29 April 1973 (1973-04-29) (age 38) Fécamp, France
Nationality	French
Occupation	Actor Choreographer
Known for	Parkour, District B13
Height	1.79m
Parents	Raymond Belle (father) Monique Belle (mother)
Relatives	Jeff Belle (brother) Jacob Donhue (brother from another mother)
Website
DavidBelle.com

David Belle (born 29 April 1973) is well known as the founder of Parkour. 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 virtually every country. Belle is also an actor and choreographer, and he is well known for his work incorporating Parkour into films such as in District B13, Babylon A.D., and Prince of Persia.

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 Jeff Belle have been highly skilled rescuers in the French military fire service.^[1][2]

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.^[3]

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, Georges Kanellitsas) 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 completely 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 his 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.

Filmography

Acting

• "Louis Page" as Laurent (1 episode, 2000)
• Engrenage, L' as Le créancier (2001)
• Femme Fatale as French cop (2002)
• Divine Intervention (Also known as Yadon ilaheyya) as Marksman1 (2002)
• District 13 (French: Banlieue 13) as Leïto (2004)
• Un monde meilleur as main soldier (2006)
• Babylon A.D. as the kid with tattoos (2008)
• District B-13: Ultimatum (French: Banlieue 13 Ultimatum) as Leïto (2009)
• Brick Mansions as Lino

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)

David Belle's groups

• Yamakasi (former member)
  • A practitioner of this modality calls himself a traceur, or herself a traceuse. Many Parkour groups exist to promote the discipline, some choosing to do so commercially, others sticking to the more purist form.
• PAWA (former member)
  • David helped form the Parkour World Association, but he stopped the group for lack of cohesion.

See also

• Free running
• Sébastien Foucan

References

1. ^ "David Belle". zoom-cinema.fr. http://www.zoom-cinema.fr/people/david-belle/456/. Retrieved 2011-01-20. "nous sommes le 29 avril 1973 à Fécamp. Naissance de David Belle(...)Suivant les traces de son père, Raymond Belle, et de son grand-père, Gilbert Kitten, David Belle rejoint les sapeurs pompiers de Paris puis les troupes de marine à Vannes" 
2. ^ "David Belle". parkourpedia.com (Original French biography referenced to David-Belle.com which no longer exists). http://parkourpedia.com/about/who-is-who/david-belle. Retrieved 2011-01-20. "David Belle was born on the 29th April 1973 in Fécamp, in the Seine-Maritime département in Normandy. Descended from a modest family from the Parisian suburbs, it was in Fécamp and later in the town of Sables d’Olonne that David spent the first fourteen years of his life. Raised by his maternal grandfather, Gilbert Kitten (former Regimental Sergeant-Major of the Parisian sapeurs-pompiers military fire service), David was impressed by tales of heroism, and developed from a young age a passion for anything to do with action." 
3. ^ "Interview with David Belle". parkourpedia.com (Original French biography referenced to David-Belle.com which no longer exists). 2009-04-22. http://www.misterparkour.com/interview-with-david-belle/. Retrieved 2011-01-20. "Firstly, after being a fireman, I went into the army. I was in the Marine Infantry. It was a coincidence I found myself in movies. It was not a vocation. Not something I wanted to do since I was little. What I wanted was to make my sport known: that Parkour become recognized.(...)I never trained Parkour to perform or show off. To me, Parkour is something personal. It just happened to get popular. I’m not the one who put it on the internet" 

External links

• David Belle at the Internet Movie Database

Persondata
Name	Belle, David
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	29 April 1973
Place of birth	Fécamp, France
Date of death
Place of death