Art-Inspired Yoga With Emily Kamen

Looking at Pieter Hugo’s photograph titled Green Point Common, Cape Town, this one-hour online yoga class takes inspiration from the stability and flexibility of both trees and people.

This one-hour online yoga class takes inspiration from Maren Hassinger’s Walking (1978), a sculpture composed of 210 two-feet-high bundles of wire rope. We will walk, wave, entwine, and wander through our yoga flow, allowing for some improvised movement as well.

Taking inspiration from Munda Meza’s 1975 painting The Flying Woman, this one-hour yoga class features chest openers and undulating movement—finding innovative methods to fly.

This one-hour online yoga class takes inspiration from Louise Bourgeois' bronze sculpture titled Nature Study #3. We’ll compress, expand, and twist to create a variety of shapes and movement patterns.

This yoga class takes inspiration from a work of gouache on paper by Marc Chagall. It explores the relationships between flight and groundedness, imagination and dreams.

This one-hour yoga class takes inspiration from a photorealistic lithograph of the ocean by contemporary artist Vija Celmins. Throughout the core-based vinyasa-style class, we’ll dive into this waterscape, considering the powerful and meditative aspects of both precise mark-making and the ocean.

This one-hour yoga class is inspired by a photograph of an Ana Mendieta performance exploring the connection between earth and body. The core-based vinyasa-style class will continue to delve into this connection, with a special focus on the figure-8 shape.

This one-hour, vinyasa-style online yoga class looks at a late 20th century drawing of a panda relaxing under a leafy canopy drinking from a bowl. Taking inspiration from this playful panda, we’ll explore fun and unexpected ways to get on our hands — and our backs.

Looking at a photograph by Elliot Furnass Porter of a rock-eroded stream bed in Coyote Gulch, Utah, this one-hour, vinyasa-style online yoga class considers the power of water to transform even the hardest of materials over time. We’ll find solid footing and new ways to flow and evolve.

This one-hour, vinyasa-style online yoga class takes inspiration from a Mughal watercolor of a pink flower made around 1770. Like the plant, we’ll grow from our roots, stand tall, reach toward the sun, and find ways to blossom.

While looking at Charles Prendergast’s watercolor "Beach Scene with Prancing Goats," this one-hour, vinyasa-style online yoga class will have you jumping for joy! Its movement sequences take inspiration from the various components of the landscapes: the architectural background, aquatic middle ground, and floral and faunal foreground.

This one-hour, vinyasa-style online class takes inspiration from a small bronze sculpture made during the 26th Dynasty in Egypt (664–392 BCE) of an ibis bird, which is associated with Thoth, the ancient god of wisdom and writing. Through movement, we will consider this sacred wading bird’s capacity to thrive in air, water, and on land.

This one-hour online vinyasa-style class takes inspiration from two subjects near and dear to Williams College: the landscape of the Berkshires and cows! It focuses on a photograph taken in Lenox, Massachusetts, in 1940 by the artist James Van Zee depicting the artist’s nephew and a herd of grazing cows.

Inspired by Joan Brown’s "Dog and Lady on Ladder with One Point Perspective" (1961), this one-hour, vinyasa-style online yoga class takes the poses assumed by the subjects of the painting—downward-facing dog and chair pose—as motifs to return to and reinvestigate.

This one-hour, vinyasa-style online yoga class takes inspiration from "The Garden Pool" by Jane Peterson. It considers the varied abilities of water to change shape and color, move and be moved, reflect and refract.

Looking at Thomas Sills’s oil painting titled "Summer," this one-hour, vinyasa-style online yoga class brings a splash of sunshine to the long Berkshire winter. It explores the interplay between form and color through bright and hopeful movement.

Taking inspiration from Sheila Mae Pinkel’s "Light Bulb," this one-hour, vinyasa-style online yoga class explores making the familiar strange and the strange familiar. It focuses on developing a strong core that supports exterior layers and a sense of lightness.

This one-hour, vinyasa-style online yoga class takes inspiration from "Auguries," a monumental 12-panel aquatint and spitbite print by contemporary artist Julie Mehretu. The title refers to the ancient practice of interpreting omens through birds’ behavior, and the class considers the potential of flight and boundary-defying movement.

This one-hour, vinyasa-style online yoga class is inspired by "Situation VI - Pisces 4" by Sam Gilliam. It plays with the idea of what it means to stretch and how dimensionality can be introduced to what is typically flat.

This one-hour, vinyasa-style online yoga class is inspired by "Situation VI - Pisces 4" by Sam Gilliam. It plays with the idea of what it means to stretch and how dimensionality can be introduced to what is typically flat.

Inspired by Do Ho Su’s 2004 "Karma Juggler" print, this one-hour, vinyasa-style online yoga class considers playful relationships between the human body and geometric forms.

Inspired by Do Ho Su’s 2004 "Karma Juggler" print, this one-hour, vinyasa-style online yoga class considers playful relationships between the human body and geometric forms.

This one-hour, vinyasa-style online yoga class takes inspiration from a work of public art located on Williams College’s campus, George Rickey’s "Double L Excentric Gyratory II" (1981). It explores creative kinesthetics and asks what we can learn from the sculpture’s ability to maintain aspects of its form while being moved by the wind. 

This one-hour, vinyasa-style online yoga class takes inspiration from a work of public art located on Williams College’s campus, George Rickey’s "Double L Excentric Gyratory II" (1981). It explores creative kinesthetics and asks what we can learn from the sculpture’s ability to maintain aspects of its form while being moved by the wind. 

Looking at a 2003 lithograph by Mark Bradford in the WALLS collection titled “629C-MB03,” this one-hour, vinyasa-style yoga class explores repetition and variation, and elliptical movement.

This one-hour, vinyasa-style yoga class takes inspiration from Barbara Takenaga’s 2011 "Nebraska Painting (rising)" in its wave-like, fluid movements punctuated by bursts of bright light.

Looking at Elle Pérez’s photograph titled “Soft Stone,” this one-hour, vinyasa-style yoga class explores malleability. How can we be both solid and soft, both a canvas and a tool for carving?

Focusing on Nie Ou’s 1997 painting "Mushroom," this one-hour, vinyasa-style yoga class celebrates and takes inspiration from mycelia’s ability to remediate—from cleansing pollutants to helping other plants grow bigger and stronger.

This one-hour vinyasa-style yoga class looks an oil painting from WCMA's collection called "Autumn, Berkshires" by Rockwell Kent, 1909. This class asks participants to think like a mountain. How have our familiar Berkshire landscapes changed over time, and what can they teach us about movement?

This one-hour vinyasa-style yoga class looks at a gelatin silver print from the WCMA collection by Manuel Alvarez Bravo called "Ya Mero," 1968. The class will explore anticipation, atmosphere, and relationships to the unknown.

This one-hour vinyasa-style yoga class looks at a drawing from the WCMA collection by Rosa Bonheur called "5 Studies of a Lion". This class considers anatomy, animality, and preparatory work in art and movement.

Looking at an untitled silkscreen print from Patrick Hughes series “The Domestic Life of the Rainbow” (1979), this one-hour vinyasa class considers relationships between form and color, movement and meditative stillness.

This one-hour vinyasa-style yoga class, to be held online via Zoom as part of Williams First Days Arts Programming, looks at a print in the WALLS collection called "Stone into a Fountain" by activist, nun, graphic artist, and teacher Corita Kent. It explores themes of spontaneity, color, and creative movement.

This 45-minute vinyasa-style yoga class, to be held online via Zoom, takes inspiration from Barbara Morgan’s photograph from 1945, "Corn Stalk." Looking at this up-close, cropped photo of a plant, the class will explore themes of animism, movement, and attention to detail. 

This one-hour, vinyasa-style yoga class, to be held online via Zoom, looks at a late 18th-early 19th century portrait of a hawk from Delhi, India, made with gouache on paper. It explores themes of flight, stillness, and focus, for humans and other animals.