Setting up the perfect Valentine’s Day date can be stressful. From picking out the best restaurant to finding the perfect gift, it’s safe to say one will be in need of a little rest and relaxation once the day is over.
The LSU Museum of Art is offering the opportunity to do that as a couple as it wraps up the “Yoga in the Galleries” program with a special Valentine’s Day partners yoga event tonight.
This event series is a combined effort between the non-profit organization Red Stick Peacemakers and the LSU Museum of Art which has allowed residents to participate in yoga classes in the museum.
This is not Red Stick Peacemakers’ first foray into community outreach. The group dedicates its time to helping the city discover the advantages of spiritual medicine and yoga practice. Annual festivals and various events are held to bring vendors and healers together in an effort to expose Baton Rouge residents to the benefits of these practices.
“We form relationships with yoga studios and different places of healing modality,” said Beth Zagurski, president of Red Stick Peacemakers. “Then we create community events where these people volunteer, and the events serve as a way for these people to learn about these different methods of healing and relaxation,” said
In December 2014, Zagurski joined forces with coordinator of school and community programs at the Museum of Art Lucy Perera to develop a way to combine art and yoga while also raising money for further Peacemakers endeavors. The pieces in the “LeRoy Neiman: Action!” exhibit — which features illustrations and paintings of dancers, athletes and musicians — are used to provide inspiration for the yoga sessions.
“The intention behind the series was to take yoga and art and put it together as a community offering to raise some money for yoga mats and other things so we can go into the community and do an outreach program during the summer,” Zagurski said. “We lucked out because it just so happened that the exhibit that’s going on now is about movement and the human body.”
Despite the connection to Valentine’s Day, partners yoga does not require participants to have a significant other. The exercise will focus on connection, relaxation and stretching.
It does help to have a bond with a partner, but a sister or a best friend will do just as well.
“You’ll not only assist each other in stretching but … relaxing as well so you’re able to get into spaces and poses that maybe you normally couldn’t do alone,” Zagurski said.
Perera said the Museum of Art hopes to continue partnering with Red Stick Peacemakers for future programs in the museum as well as out in the community. Both parties have benefitted from the partnership as has the community.
She said 100 percent of the proceeds raised from Yoga in the Galleries goes toward bringing yoga to the youth that the LSU Museum of Art works with in the Neighborhood Arts Project and Artworks Programs.
Admission is $30 per couple and will take place tonight at 6 p.m. on the fifth floor of the Shaw Center for the Arts at 100 Lafayette Street. Wine and chocolate will be served after the event.
You can reach Sadie McDade on Twitter @sadoemcdadie.