Showing posts with label Yamakasi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yamakasi. Show all posts

Saturday, March 24, 2012

A Visit to Paris - training with the Yamakasi, classes at the ADD Academy, and a stop by the 2WS Store

Since London is a whole lot closer to Paris than Boston I decided to take advantage of my proximity to the city of light to spend a few days there before heading to Thailand.

My visit to Paris was pretty productive despite the short duration and I managed to fit in a grueling training session with Chau and some of the other guys at the hill/stairs in Torcy, attend one of the ADD Academy classes being held at Bercy, and spend a fair amount of time at the 2WS boutique near Chatelet.  There are a number of new products in the pipeline for the upcoming spring and summer seasons and I got a chance to try them on an give some input into the designs.

One of the new custom-printed t-shirts.

There are new colors available for both pants and tops.

The Takare is now available in "Cherry Red".

If you can recognize the arms, you've spent way too much time with me...
While I was at the store some of the guys showed me a recent “reportage” that aired on France 3 about the ADD Academy and the classes that it offers in Paris.  It is especially notable because it was done by a French reporter that actually took the time and effort to try to get to know what l’art de déplacement/parkour/freerunning actually is, instead of the usual dismissal that the French media gives to the sport, labeling it as an activity performed by a bunch of kids from the banlieue that want to be stuntmen and get on tv (or worse, an illicit activity by bunch of street youth training how to become acrobatic burglars.)

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Paris – A visit to the World Wild Souls (2WS) Boutique

In addition to having a chance to reconnect with old friends and get some “quality training time” with the Yamakasi, my other reason for visiting Paris was to check out the World Wild Souls, aka 2WS, store that opened last fall. 


I first learned about the launch of the brand when I visited in June 2010 for the ADD Experience.  It was there that I was introduced to the two main people behind the effort, Daniel Toti and Stéphane De Maintenant, and got a glimpse of the efforts and plans underway.

World Wild Souls, also known as 2WS is something that has been in “in the pipes” for a quite a while now.  Actually, if one looks closely, the logo and name can be seen on some of the clothing and media items used by the Yamakasi in some of the earliest videos (this is from quite a few years ago, notice the cut of the shirts and the logo on the back)



It wasn’t until a few years ago when Daniel, a veteran of the Parisian fashion industry, and Stéphane, with an extensive business background, came in contact with the Yamakasi and plans for the clothing went beyond a small, custom-made line of clothing to something larger.  The official launch of the brand occurred in October of 2010 and since then it has been making steady progress in becoming recognized in France and throughout the parkour community.  After nearly a year of hearing about the brand and everything going on in Paris I decided to pay a visit to check things out during my trip to Paris.

The 2WS store is located on a small street in Paris near the fashion district of Les Halles on Rue Jean-Jacques.  While the street that is located on is not exactly a main thoroughfare, there is a constant stream of people coming into the store, usually from within the extended “family” of the Yamakasi or the staff at 2WS.

The shop itself is an awesome combination of French fashion with the Yamak feel and is decorated in a combination of scaffolding and wood that fits nicely with the clothing and with the Yamak themselves.  While the decorations are simple, they also fit well with the clothing and with the moving decoration of the traceurs that can be found wandering in and out of the store at most times.

The store front, the street is a bit quiet but there seems to be a constant stream of friends and visitors passing through. 
The entry.
After a quick tour of the building and the labyrinth of caves and storerooms down below (almost an extension of the Parisian catacombs) I met with Daniel, Antoine (one of the managers at the store and the younger brother of Tony Thich) to talk logistics and about the potential pairing of my travels with the development of 2WS.

The clothing is pretty awesome and I was fortunate enough to receive a number of the items to wear on my travels.  While many of the items are inspired by the Yamakasi and parkour movements, the clothing is not by any means parkour-only.  The brand is more designed for movement in general, and many of the items are also designed for use in dance, yoga, pilates, capoeira, martial arts, and any number of other movement-based practices.

The interior of the store.

The decor has been kept simple, but anyone that has trained with the Yamak or seen them perform can understand the choice of the scaffolding.

Some local traceurs and Laurent who happened to be at the store for an event.

All of the items are made from 100% cotton, although the feel to the cloth is very different from the standard cotton gear that one often finds in the US or Europe.  The symbol on the back of many of the items, known as a “chesu”, is New Caledonian in origin and symbolizes the Yamakasi spirit of “esprit fort, corps fort” (“strong mind, strong body” in English).

The chésu, the symbol of the brand.

 In the year since the launch the brand has grown a lot and been featured in a number of fashion-related events in Paris.

The guys performing at the Fall 2011 fashion show by Jean-Paul Gaultier (in the middle).  Photo courtesy of 2WS.
In addition to heading back to London with a few items to wear on my travels, I also came back with the title of “Global Brand Representative” for the brand, with the task of promoting the brand as well as the history and ideas of the Yamakasi roots as I travel.  While this isn’t really any different what I’ve been doing in the past, it has given me a unique opportunity to use some of my marketing experience while working for a company and ideology that I strongly believe in.  And of course I get to wear and test out some pretty awesome clothing in the process.

For more information on the brand and the clothing, check out the newly refurbished site below.

www.2ws.fr

Some more photos of the clothing from 2WS below...

Chau, one of the founders of ADD/parkour.

Laurent, in his "resting" pose in a reversible long-sleeve shirt.

Guylain, fellow founder, wearing the Early Running hoodie. 

Yann, founder, wearing the reversible t-shirt.

One of the most popular items, the "Takare".




  

Monday, December 19, 2011

Visit to France - Training with the Yamakasi


After a few weeks in London I headed to Paris for a few days to go back to where I had first been exposed to parkour and to catch up with a number of old friends there. 

My plane arrived in Paris late at night so I crashed at a friend’s house and took the RER to Evry the next morning.  My visit just happened to overlap with Laurent being in town as well so I joined him at the cathedral for a “handstand block” followed by a light 45-min jog around Evry/Lisses.  The run ended up being an unofficial tour of parkour’s early days and he “unconsciously” managed to take us by most of the buildings that are seen in the earliest parkour videos.
  
My visit also happened to overlap with Jun Sato’s visit before he headed back to Japan, and we were both generously hosted by Philippe.  We were also joined by Valentin, Philippe’s best friend, who had recently come over to Europe as parkour of a Réunionese exodus of parkour talent to Europe (more about his countrymen Axel and Kevin later).  This made for a very entertaining train rides in the mornings as we made the long journey from Philippe’s house to civilization every morning.

Jun found a good way to pass the time on the long rides to and from Philippe's house.

The next day we headed back to Evry to check out the new training facility that the ADD Academy had recently completed.  While not yet open to the public due to some bureaucratic nonsense about the maximum number of people allowed in the space at one time, the facility is pretty good and offers a lot of potential for winter and bad-weather training as well as providing a good location to work on flips and acrobatics. 

The entrance, which is located in the middle of the mall in Evry.

The interior.

Lots of space, lots of mats...
 After hanging around at the gym, where we were joined by some of the other ADD Academy guys that had come by to train for a bit, we headed to Paris to join in the ADD Academy class that night.  The class was much bigger than I expected (40+ people) and it was really great to see that the academy was growing strong.  The class itself was well-run and featured instruction by Chau and Ben (who I hadn't met before, but who definitely fits in with the Yamak spirit).  I was also surprised to find that, like the Parkour Generations classes in London, the vast majority of the participants at the class were working professionals who were using it as an alternative to going to a “normal gym”.  The class felt significantly easier than the last time I had been to one of the ADD Academy Parisian classes (during a research trip in 2009), although I suspect that this was because my training has come a long way since then.  I guess that Chau noticed that I wasn't feeling too tired by the end as he invited me to the “team training” the next morning at Bercy.

We were up at the crack of dawn the next morning to get to Bercy and we arrived to find the guys ready and raring to go.  In typical Yamak fashion we spent the first hour and a half running, crawling, and jumping up the stairs of the Bercy stadium.  After absolutely shattering our legs Chau brought us to the next part of the training, which turned out to be plyometric strides and jumps along the bollards by the fountain.  By the two-hour mark our legs were starting to cramp and give out so Chau decided that enough was enough and it was time to move on to the second half of the training- arms.  He picked what seemed like a small and non-descript white guard railing by the skate park but an hour later I knew every intimate inch of that railing.  The arm workout turned out to be even more brutal than the leg portion and by the end of it almost all of us had forearms that felt as if they had swollen to the size of our quads.

Once we had “gotten to know” the railing we moved over to one of the ping-pong tables in the park.  Normally a very non-aggressive and demure object, by the end of the exercises going over, under, up, and down the rough concrete edges of the table we had all left significant quantities of blood and sweat behind.

After the training we all headed over to a local Vietnamese restaurant for a delicious lunch “en famille”.  Basking in that feeling that comes after an extended punishing workout I realized that this was perhaps one of the things that I missed most about the Yamak style of training- spending a few hours pushing the limits of strength and endurance, with few breaks or time spent fooling around, and then taking time to hang out with new and old friends that were forged with the blood sweat and tears from the workout- preferably in a venue with copious quantities of good food.  While I had pushed myself to my limits on the other two occasions that I had spent time with the guys in Paris (2009, 2010), this was the first time that I was able to properly to join in the training and I finally felt like I had earned my place at the table, both as a friend and now as a traceur.  While it was great to see the progress that I have made over the past year and a half, training with the guys that day also reminded me of how much I have yet to learn, and not just in terms of techniques and movements, but also in life.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Rendezvous 5

So I realize that I’m writing about this post a month after the event took place but it has taken me a while to totally digest the action-packed few days that were “Rendezvous 5”. This event, which took place on August 14th and 15th and was hosted by Parkour Generations in the Southbank region of London (near Waterloo Station in London), was a sort of international gathering of traceurs, similar to the ADD Experience that I went to in France this past June (see first blog post). The weekend included 2 full days of training sessions, workshops, group discussions, and general networking with traceurs from around the world, but with a special focus on those from throughout the UK. While the activities and training was great, the thing that made the event so special was the atmosphere that pervaded the event.

The logo of Rendezvous 5, designed by Andy Pearson.

After having endured several weeks of veterans hyping the event, I was both curious, and I’ll admit it, a bit apprehensive about the event. After the ADD Experience in France, I figured that I had been to the best parkour event possible and couldn’t see what the Brits could do to equal it. In retrospective, I think that this might have been due to the fact that I hadn’t quite come to understand the depth of the Parkour Generations organization yet, and also because I was (am still am) fiercely loyal to the group of people that “introduced” me to parkour.

The event started early Saturday morning with a group warm-up session on the roof of one of the big theaters in the Southbank district. The group size was impressive in and of itself, with more than 150 people showing up to the first day’s events. The participants ranged from veterans who had started practicing 7+ years ago after the first videos and documentaries came out, to people that had heard about the event from friends and had decided to try it out for the first time (needless to say, they were pretty sore after the first day). As usual, the diversity of nationalities was also impressive, with lots of people flying in for the event from all over Europe, with strong representation from Italy and France. The event also featured special guest instructors from abroad, with Laurent Piemontesi (the Yamakasi founder who I trained with last summer and who had a profound effect on my interest in the philosophy of the sport) coming in from Italy where he is establishing a parkour academy; Sebastian Foucan (James Bond: Casino Royale); Chau Belle-Dinh, Serika Kingman, and a few other members of the Yamakasi/Majestic Force/ADD Academy team; and a number of Parkour Generations “ambassadors” who seemed to reconvene from all corners of the world for this event.

Yamakasi founder Laurent (left) and co-Director of Parkour Generations, Forrest (right). Two people who have had a huge influence on my training and development in parkour.


The instructors- it would be hard to find a more talented or open group of people.

After a grueling warm-up led by Châu and the Majestic Force guys, the participants were divided into groups based on skill levels and sent to different locations around the Southbank area. We spent the rest of the day rotating among the different instructors in our small groups, with each “station” working on a different skill set, usually with a heavy influence from the particular instructor’s personal style. After 8 hours of training, many people headed back home to recover in time for the next day, while the “hardbodies” (or masochists) met up again after dinner for a “night-training” session. Slightly different from a typical training session, practicing at night in an abandoned housing project definitely gave me a new perspective on movement and a lot of the things that one doesn’t think about in broad daylight. The entire 2-hour session was conducted in compete silence, from the mimed warm-up to the “follow the leader” challenge that took us through the 3-acre estate. I’m convinced that if we had attempted this in an inhabited housing development someone would have called the police, but the fact that the windows boarded up, there were no barking dogs or murmur of voices, and even the traffic seemed muted by the dark and abandoned towers around us. This environment amplified every sound and made us painfully aware of the scrape of trainers on a misjudged step, the thump of landings not made on the balls of feet, the clap of palms that missed their marks, the scuffle of leaves underfoot, or the muttered curses that escape when the overhang jumps out from nowhere to attack one’s head. Since moving efficiently and smoothly ideally involves very little noise, this night exercise was a great way to make one aware of corrections that needed to be made.

Stephane Vigroux, one of the instructors for the night training session. Photo courtesy of Andy Day Photography.

Sunday morning saw another early start (it felt especially early for those who had just gone to bed after getting back from the night session) and full day of training with the different instructors and trying to absorb as much of their knowledge and the general atmosphere as possible.

The first official picture of me actually doing some of the stuff I’m writing about.

One of the most striking things about this weekend for me was the spirit of community that seemed to pervade all the events. While the atmosphere had subtle differences from the one that I encountered in France, (one might chalk that up to one being French and the other British), the spirit of cooperation, unity, and pursuit of the common goal of personal development and general fitness were the same. These events really seem to be the glue that binds a lot of these organizations together. The friendships and mutual respect that are forged by two days of blood and sweat seem to create a “community” aspect to parkour that I think stems from the inclusive and progressive philosophy of the sport. An example of this is the accommodations set up for the event, with all of the “imported” instructors being hosted by Parkour Generations team members, and many of the foreign participants staying with friends that they had made at previous events.

The warmup at RDV5 (Photo courtesy of Parkour Generations)

Maybe it is the stark contrast with the individualistic aspect of the sport that makes this sense of community so striking, but it gives me a lot of hope for the development of the sport, and the desire for it to outlast the labels of “fad” or “fashion”. Much the same way that the sport of Frisbee can only be played as long as the “spirit of the game” is respected, parkour seems to depend on this as well. Not only do traceurs have to keep the reputation of the entire sport in mind when they practice, since one incident with an unhappy resident or damaged private property can result in a city-wide ban on the sport or an unfavorable view in the eyes of authorities, but also because so much of the development of the sport seems to depend on the sharing of knowledge and experiences- moves, techniques, conditioning exercises, practice spots…

Perhaps one of the best ways to capture the attitude of this weekend is with the phrase that became the mantra of the weekend, “We start together, we finish together”. Originally taken from the Yamakasi expression “On commence ensemble, on finit ensemble”, it not only describes the general practice of waiting for everyone to finish the set/route/rep before continuing as a group, but also of a state of awareness for the safety and well-being of the others that one is training with.

Rendezvous 5: I’m in the top left, sporting a bright orange shirt and the usual tousled mane.

For more pictures of the event (there are a lot of great ones) check out Andy Day's shots from the night session HERE or pics from the Parkour Generations site HERE.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Pre-Watson Adventure: "Paris"

So how do I sum up the last two and half weeks? In relation to the project, it has certainly been everything that I was hoping for (and then some). I guess that I should start from the beginning.

After a long and sleepless flight to Paris by way of Reykjavik, Iceland, a rather sleepless one I might add because, as usual, I spent the entire flight trying to watch every movie available. This meant that when I arrived in Paris, I was both jetlagged and cross-eyed from watching the small screen for so long. I spent a day recovering and hanging out with a friend that had recently moved to Paris to work for an American company selling advertising. He was kind enough to let me crash on his floor for a few nights, and we spent the evening people watching and hanging out at the only Argentinean bar in Paris while watching their World Cup match.

The day after my arrival in France I took the train out to Evry and met with the Yamakasi/Majestic Force. To preface what happened next I think that a brief bit of history/background is in order.

Parkour was started by a group of young men in the 1990s in the banlieue of Evry/Lisses/Courcourronnes outside of Paris. The group of 9 young men were known as the Yamakasi, a name that means “esprit fort/home fort” (strong mind/strong body) in zingala, the ancient language of Zaire. Their discipline/sport/movement emerged as a combination of different athletic interests and was heavily influenced by the architectural “uniqueness” of this particular region of France, which was a “planned city” that incorporated many of the ideas of Corbusier in the post-WWII era. After devoting themselves to making what had started as childhood games into a “mode de vie” (way of life), various members of the group split off to pursue their own styles of the sport.

Perhaps one of the best know members, and the man whom some call the “godfather of parkour”, David Belle went on to do a number of successful movies using his unique skills, the first of which was “Banlieue 13” (released internationally as District B13). His name is associated with the sport of “parkour”, and his definition for the movement is the one that is used around the world of the “movement from Point A to Point B in the most efficient and fluid way bodily possible, going over, under through, or around obstacles”. He recently worked with the choreography of the “Prince of Persia” video game and subsequent movie, but has been relatively absent from the media/general parkour community.

David Belle


Sébastien Foucan went on to Great Britain where he started the “Freerunning” movement. This particular style is considered by many to be much more superfluous and showy, with an abundance of flips and jumps that many “parkour purists” claim are not true parkour. He is best known for his part in James Bond: Casino Royale (the opening scene features him being chased across the city, up a crane, and through a construction site by a much less agile Daniel Craig). The freerunning movement really took off after the release of the “Jump London” documentary released in 2003. This was followed by the sequal, “Jump Britian” in 2005, and by “Jump Westminster” in 2007 (a great documentary, this film was actually one of the inspirations behind this project. You can find it here.

Sébastien in Casino Royale


In 2005, four of the original Yamakasi; Châu Belle, Yann Hnautra, Williams Belle, and Laurent Piemontesi, started the label Majestic Force with the aid of long-time friend Bruno Girard. They were later joined by Guylian N’Guba Boyeke. This group has been the primary force for the discipline in France, and their style, known as “l’art du deplacement” can essentially be called “the art of movement”. They opened an “Art Du Déplacement Academy” (ADD Academy- not the same thing as one would imagine in English) in 2008, and ever since they have been steadily working to expand and improve their organization. The Academy is based in Evry, the birthplace of parkour, and through the cooperation of the city government, which has embraced the discipline; they recently started construction on an indoor training facility in the center of town, as well as a number of modifications to several outdoor public areas to make them into better practice spots for practionners. This in itself is symbolic for the progress that the sport has made in the last few years, since at the beginning the discipline was used as a way for the Yamakasi to adapt to their city and its unique architecture, but now the city is being adapted to better-suited the needs of the practionners.

Châu, me, Guylain, Yann


Last summer I was given a generous grant by the Abernethy Foundation at Davidson College to go to study the activities of the Yamakasi in Paris over a four-week period. My time spent with the team allowed me to really get to know the guys in the group, as well as to witness the effects of their actions and the influence that it had one the kids that they worked with. I left at the end of the month thoroughly amazed and inspired and good friends with many of the guys, especially Bruno Girard who wears the hats of close friend, advisor, manager, press aide, and producer to the team.

My arrival in Paris two weeks ago was planned to coincide with the “International Art du Déplacement/Parkour/Freerunning Meeting”, a 3-day affair that included traceurs from all around the world. I arrived a few days in advance of the opening activities on Friday to be able help out Bruno and the rest of the Yamakasi to help in any way that I could. The first two days were spent doing small errands and watching the guys rehearse for their big show on Saturday. The highlights of those days were definitely when I got to climb around on the 3-story scaffolding (think your average jungle gym on lots of steroids) that had been set up for the performance, taping down mats on the platforms, getting it ready for the show, and generally “monkeying around”. Thursday things started to pick up as we started getting everything ready for the following day’s activities, and the flood of foreign visitors that were expected.

Here is a link to the site for the event for those that might like more details.

Friday was essentially a day for the press and politicians, featuring interviews with the mayor and other city officials, and a press-conference/debate on the status of the sport in Evry. Although the statements by some of the politicians and “experts” sounded a little rehearsed and un-genuine, I was very impressed by those of a number of the other people that attended. Among those were the members of London’s Parkour Generations, and Eugene Minogue, their contact within the city of Westminster who was one of the driving forces behind the “Jump Westminster” project. Both he and Mohammed Nesch, the organizer of the “Mixe 3 Terres” arts festival in Blois that I attended with the Yamakasi last summer, spoke to the potential of the sport in their work with youth and their observations of the success of their respective programs. I learned a lot from the press conference and hope to receive a written copy of the transcript soon so that I can a link to it.

One of the defining features of this weekend was the emphasis made on working toward the unity of the sport/discipline of parkour/freerunning/ADD. The presence of Sébastien Foucan at the event was a big deal for many of the traceurs that had come from abroad due to his international celebrity status and the fact that he is a seldom seen member of the parkour community now. Although many online blogs have criticized his lack of communication about his activities and called him a traitor to the sport, I found all of my experience to be quite the contrary. Not only is Sébastien as generous and open as the rest of the Yamakasi, he is actually kind of the clown of the group. He was constantly cracking jokes throughout the weekend, and his antics seemed to be regarded with fond patience by the other Yamakasi. Despite being surrounded at all times by a mob of curious traceurs posing all manner of questions, he took everything graciously and never seemed to tire or to let it go to his head (for an example of the mob that surrounded him, see the before and after pics here. The time difference between the two pictures is about 4 seconds.) For more information about Sébastien, you can visit his site at: http://www.foucan.com/

Seb and I


Seb, me and "the mob"


When I wasn’t attending the press conference, running errands, or hanging out with the guys, I was working the reception desk for participants in the workshop later that weekend. This was a lot more interesting than it might sound at first because it gave me the opportunity to see the full breadth of international involvement at the event. I met participants from all over Europe, with particularly strong representation from Italy, France, the UK, and Germany; as well but with many other countries represented (Poland, Lithuania, Switzerland, Belgium, Estonia, Spain… even Australia, although I was the only American). Many of these visitors were being hosted by various members of the team, or were staying in the gymnasium that the city had generously offered for the event (where I was given the job of essentially being co-babysitter to a bunch of very coordinated and energetic “kids” with a fellow bilingual member of the support team).

I spent Saturday working on a number of administrative tasks and then got a chance to visit the four workshops that had been set up around the city. Each spot had a group of the ADD Academy/Yamakasi instructors working in conjunction with instructors from Parkour Generations and Parkour Italia. Practitioners were encouraged to do a circuit of the city and receive tips, workouts, and hang out with some of the most respected traceurs in the world. Saturday culminated with a show that was put on by the Yamakasi in the local concert arena. The spectacle had been produced by Châu and choreographed by Guylain and was called Darwin Fantasy. It featured a number of different pieces that followed the evolution of man’s movement from pre-human and pre-historic ages to the modern day. While I had seen something of a similar theme last summer in Blois, this spectacle was on an entirely different scale and of a much higher caliber. Although I had witness the evolution and improvement of the show over the course of the week, and the final performance was probably my 15th repetition, I was continually amazed by what the guys could do. Unfortunately I don’t have any footage of the show because there are plans to do a professional DVD release of the show, but I will post a link to it as soon as that is made available.

Sunday was the official “workshop day” and included an 8-hour series of practice sessions around the city. I was finally able to work some of the rust out of my system after a year of little-to-no parkour training and had a lot of fun. Although the sessions were short, the length of the day had its effect and I came back to the city hall thoroughly tired but happy.

Throughout the week I was continually impressed by how integrated the Yamakasi and the ADD Academy are into the city of Evry and in Paris in general. The entire event seemed to involve a city-wide commitment of resources and it was clear that the city officials were very proud of the team. The Yamakasi have also established an impressed entourage of artists and support staff, from DJ Mao, a professional DJ who managed the entire soundtrack for the show from the spot of honor at the top of the central scaffold throughout the show. Other friends like Daniel Toti were involved with the release of a new clothing line by the Majestic Force/Yamakasi label, that will soon be released (I’ll have more details on that in a future post). There are countless other friends and supporters of the team that I met this weekend and each one contributed to the atmosphere of cooperation and progress that pervaded this weekend.

This atmosphere was what really made this weekend special. Talking with other participants everyone remarked on the spirit that seemed to permeate all the activities this weekend. Maybe it was the coming together of representatives from each of the 3 “branches”: l’art du déplacement (Yamakasi), freerunning (Sébastien Foucan), and parkour (Parkour Generations); or maybe the continual references to “unity despite differences” and “embracing your individual style”; or maybe just everybody’s excitement to be at the birthplace of the discipline, working together to make each other stronger. While I have had pretty limited contact with fellow traceurs in the US due to the fact that I was usually training for track/XC and therefore not allowed to train for parkour, I have found that this sport/discipline seems to attract a lot of very genuine, friendly, and generous people. Although I know that this weekend was unique for its star-studded cast, I hope that the atmosphere of cooperation is not and I’m looking forward to repeating my experience around the world.

I would like to give special thanks to Bruno Girard, Marie Gayan, and the whole of the Yamakasi/ADD Academy for their warm welcome and the generosity that they showed me during my visit.

Bruno, me, Marie


Some members of the ADD Academy & entourage