Workshop with Laurent Piemontesi, assisted by Simone Bicorgna, Diana Bruno and Yohann Bassez

Sat–Mon 2–4 April 2016, 10:00–12:15, 12:30–14:45

Outdoor public spaces

The workshop will be conducted in English

Contact and application
Please email your completed application form by 20 March 2016 to Justyna Rodzińska-Nair at justyna@grotowski-institute.art.pl. Please include in the subject of the email ‘BodyConstitution workshops’ followed by the name of the chosen workshop. The number of places is limited. Applicants will be accepted on a first-come-first-serve basis. You can attend one practice or a whole-day session.

Admission free, advance booking required

The practice of l’Art Du Déplacement (ADD) was born in the suburbs of Paris in the late 1980s amongst a group of young people joined by friendship and family ties. At first they played together testing their strength and agility. They called themselves Yamakasi, which in Lingala dialect means ‘strong spirit’, ‘strong body’, ‘strong person’.

In a spirit of sharing and mutual encouragement to grow stronger and go further beyond their limits, they developed a rigorous training system of exercises and techniques to prepare themselves for higher levels of physical and mental mastery.

Since the 1980s the practice has spread worldwide (also as parkour) and ADD has been further developed by four of them – Chau Belle, Williams Belle, Yann Hnautra and Laurent Piemontesi – who kept on practising it and spreading a culture of sharing, improving well-being through mental and physical effort, as well as values such as respect, good will, resilience and courage.

Its two key words are Art and Movement. Through Art we develop our inner qualities, the invisible. With Movement we explore and discover the world and people; we practise displacement, which is good for physical fitness, our body, the visible.
Laurent Piemontesi 

 

‘Esprit Yamak’ workshop is open to all those interested in experiencing l’Art Du Déplacement in its original spirit of research, commitment and sharing.

Please bring indoor and outdoor training gear.

Laurent Piemontesi is an artist, athlete, coach and trainer; he likes to define himself as a craftsman. He is a co-founder of l’Art Du Déplacement (ADD), the original name of the discipline now known as parkour or freerunning. Born in Paris, he grew up in its southern suburbs where, in Evry, Lisses and Sarcelles, he and his friends, including Yann Hnautra, Chau Belle Dinh and Williams Belle, formed a group called Yamakasi. With the other members of the group, he was the protagonist of the films Yamakasi – Les Samouraïs des Temps Modernes (2001) and Yamakasi 2 – Les Fils du vent (2004). Between 1999 and 2000 he was part of the artistic cast of the show Notre Dame de Paris in Paris and Las Vegas. For several years he worked as a coach with Cirque du Soleil for the shows KA and LOVE. Since 2010 he has lived in Milan, Italy, where he teaches l’Art Du Déplacement in Forma In Arte, Italy’s first gym dedicated to the practice of this discipline. He is involved in the transmission of ​​the educational, social and human values underpinning l’Art Du Déplacement. He travels around the world with his workshop ‘Esprit Yamak’.

More information: www.youtube.com/channel

Simone Bicorgna grew up in sport; he started playing football when he was a child. After he came across ADD in 2007 he started training on his own. In 2009, after meeting Laurent Piemontesi, he changed his training under the influence of the Yamak style. In the following years he attended several workshops and training sessions with the discipline founders, travelled in Italy and Europe and started teaching l’Art Du Déplacement in his town. With crew, and supported by the founders, he opened the first ADD Academy in Italy in 2014.
More information: www.youtube.com/user/ADDUmbria

Diana Bruno is an architect by profession. She has always loved to move. Driven by curiosity and passion, she tried her hand at many sports and movement disciplines such as gymnastics, athletics, diving, climbing, dance and capoeira. In 2010, after a chance meeting with Laurent Piemontesi, she began practising l’Art Du Déplacement, and then, for over three years, she followed the special path of ‘learning how to transmit’ the discipline, enriched by experiences of training with other members and attending workshops and sessions with practitioners in Italy, France, Serbia, Croatia, London and Budapest. Since 2012 she has worked at Forma in Arte, as the assistant of Laurent Piemontesi for l’Art Du Déplacement classes and training sessions.

Yohann Bassez belonged to the first group of French teenagers trained by the Yamakasi, shortly after they shot their first movie almost 15 years ago. He grew up practising ADD. A passionate mover, explorer and coach, he also loves photography and making videos. His enthusiasm for life is infectious. Since 2012 he has been living in Poznań, Poland, where he founded ADD Academy Poznan to transmit the values of l’Art Du Déplacement and where he teaches ADD at the local university.
More information: www.youtube.com/user/TheHappylinks