Health comes in many forms. Being healthy can’t be limited to eating your greens and running every once in a while. Sometimes, a daily dose of well-being has to come from unfamiliar sources.
The Baton Rouge Peace Makers are a group devoted to healthy living and naturalistic healing. The organization came together as an auxiliary group of the World Peace Day festival in Baton Rouge. Members of the group serve their community through the education of meditation techniques and yoga.
The Peace Makers’ latest endeavor is a series of yoga classes taught at the LSU Museum of Art. The classes will be held at the museum’s galleries among works featured in the latest exhibits. Beth Zagurski, president of the Peace Makers, cited the growing trend of art and yoga programs across the nation as an influence for bringing yoga to the museum.
At first glance, an art gallery seems like the last place to hold yoga courses. However, Zagurski draws a connection between the experience of performing yoga and the creation of art.
“We just all felt that yoga and art lend themselves to one another,” Zagurski said. “In the connection of the mind and the body, it’s finding that same space that you find in yoga, you also use in artistic expression.”
From this relationship of mind and body, the presence of art in a class further enhances yoga’s effect on its learners. The museum’s current exhibit, LeRoy Neiman’s “Action!,” depicts humans in motion. Neiman’s focus on the corporal grace of athleticism reinforces yoga’s discipline of the body as well as the mind.
Whether students attend the classes for physical or spiritual reasons, the art is present to help them focus on whatever they feel needs remedying.
“People come for those physical reasons,” Zagurski said. “Maybe they want to get in better shape, they want to become more flexible or they want to reduce stress. This particular exhibit helps … as inspiration for our practice to highlight all of the physical benefits you get from yoga.”
Despite the museum’s usual change of exhibits, the classes are scheduled to continue through the year. With each new showcase, the Peace Makers aim to use whatever art is at hand to frame the objectives of their yoga classes.
In contrast, the use of an art exhibit as a classroom raises the potential hazard of distraction from intense focus, which is essential in yoga. For Zagurski, the works shouldn’t pose a challenge for her and her students. Rather, she invites pupils to acknowledge the art and allow it to be part of the lessons.
“I think that’s what yoga’s about,” Zagurski said. “It’s not about letting things distract you but about letting things become integrated and whole. You’re inviting that art into your practice. If a beautiful piece of art distracts you, then so be it, too.”
Along with the overall aesthetic of holding classes in an art gallery, Zagurski said many yoga students could be overwhelmed by the idea of practicing in a yoga studio. The stress of meeting physical expectations can be damaging to the calming effect yoga has. At $40, the overall cost of the classes at the museum may also be more favorable than that of a personal professional yoga instructor.
“[The Peace Makers] were looking for ways to be in the community and offer yoga in different spaces,” Zagurski said. “That can be inhibiting either though intimidation … or economically prohibitive.”
The first class is scheduled for today at 6 p.m. This initial session will act as a primer for the series of classes that will begin in January. After working to advertise with the LSU Museum of Art, Zagurski hopes for a large first class.
For the Peace Makers, the gallery classes instill a sense of community into yoga. The group hopes to branch out with these art-infused yoga classes, beginning a pilot program at area schools.
“[The pilot program] is to get kids moving and to give them some tools to help them deal with the stress of being at school, being a kid or taking tests,” Zagurski said. “Whatever stress that they are experiencing, there’s some tools … that will help them manage that stress.”
You can reach Gerald Ducote on Twitter @geraldducote_TDR.