Work by Marc Larcher October 20, 2022
In this new series of documentaries we discover bike kill, voguing, graffiti, many underground disciplines that influence the whole world from the streets of New York.
The other side of “New York, New York”
It is the other side of the scenario of New York, the city that has always fascinated the whole world. Not Central Park or the Empire State Building, not the tourist spots but a succession of places that are rarely talked about and yet influence the rest of humanity. As part of the “Les Nouveaux Explorateurs” program, Canal + offers us a new series of documentaries on the world of urban culture by visiting its Mecca: the streets of New York.
At every street corner, a new discipline
Our guide is called Nadia Mechaheb, she is a professor of Physical Education and Sport but above all a hip-hop dancer passionate about urban cultures. At his side, from the first episode, we enter the streets of the Bronx neighborhood, where hip hop was born in the late 70s. City: “In the Bronx there are many different cultures and they all blend together”, a woman tells him stationed at the exit of a subway station with his portable speaker. And unlike other shows where the camera would be shot elsewhere, there Nadia starts dancing with her interlocutor.
With it, the city is transformed into an open-air laboratory where little-known artists are proposed. Nadia thus has an appointment with the dancers who improvise shows in the subway cars. For four hours of acrobatics and sweat, the dancers will earn $ 100 each.
Then the young French girl discovers the work of a new type of graffiti artist who takes her to Brooklyn, in the Bushwick neighborhood, the Mecca of graffiti. Nadia then takes the boat to meet Staten Island skaters, then she returns to the Bronx to meet street basketball fans. Every time a friendship is born, ideas are exchanged, a new vocabulary emerges, proud people show the fruit of years of work, it is a hymn to freedom and fatigue.
The city is so rich in communities and underground activities that Nadia goes from one treasure to another. After witnessing a colorful fashion battle with drag queens, she concludes her exploration at the underground festival of “bike kill”, a new discipline that brings together the creators of mind-blowing bicycles that will be destroyed in some sort of immense battle royal. the “Mad Max” movies or the Burning Man festival in the Californian desert.
The best way to fight violence
At the end of this long journey, the viewer realizes that he has passed through some of the most violent neighborhoods in New York and yet there has never been any talk of hate, theft, drugs or confusion. It is that the art and sport practiced by these followers offer a sufficiently enriching activity and a life discipline that allows them to focus on their work. After the show, you can only search for your passion, the one that will create a culture as much as a lifestyle and personal fulfillment.
The New Explorers: Culture & Street, New York the cradle, a must-see document on CANAL +
