Parkour and physical comedy have a lot in common: a similar technical vocabulary, creativity interacting with real-world physical structures, and many of the same heroes — Buster Keaton, Douglas Fairbanks, Georges Hébert. I’ve already written extensively about all that in this earlier post, one of my personal favorites, so today I just want to alert you to this NY Times article:
An excerpt:
Parkour gyms have opened across the country, from Los Angeles to Rochester, featuring juice bars, private classes and children’s birthday parties that cost $450 (cake not included). Specialized apparel companies sell tailored gloves for $34.50 and shoes for $60. An international organization offers special parkour insurance policies and charges $295 for teacher certification courses.
Needless to say, this is controversial. Click here to read the whole article (and the reader comments!), see a slide show, and view a pretty good 3-minute video. (If the video is no longer there, it will be archived here.)
