Exercising Freedom: Art-Inspired Circuit Training

Exercising Freedom: Art-Inspired Circuit Training invites participants to engage in a series of exercises inspired by three thought-provoking works in the exhibition: Liz Magic Laser’s Exorcise 1–8 (2023), Karl Andrei Ibarra’s Contensiones (2023), and Ronny Quevedo’s at the line (2021).

Join instructors Sarah Darlene (January 8 & 15) and Soraya Latiff (January 22 & 29) for a circuit training experience shaped by their practices and the featured artworks.

Each 90-minute session combines breathwork, yoga, and cardio-based movements, offering a unique way to explore themes of social justice, liberation, and movement.

Items to bring:

Wear comfortable clothing, including socks.

Water bottle (with a lid)

Mats will be available but please feel free to bring your own.

This is a ticketed program and space is limited.

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About the Instructors

Sarah Darlene (b. 1989, Baton Rouge, Louisiana) is a Denver-based artist whose work explores the intersection of expressive abstraction, physical embodiment, and spiritual experience. Primarily a painter, she transcends traditional methods by incorporating materials like clothing, sand, and rope into her work with an intuitive, mindfulness-based approach. Her work is rooted in body awareness, femininity, and queer identity, guided by the yogic concept of Maya—the illusory nature of reality. Understanding her creative practice as divination work, she continually creates new rituals to respond to her body's present needs while echoing Abstract Expressionist compositions and concepts.

Darlene holds a BFA in Painting and Drawing from Louisiana State University and an Executive Certificate of Nonprofit Management from the University of Notre Dame. Since moving to Denver in 2012, Sarah has collaborated with dozens of nonprofits to bring arts education and wellness programs to various communities. She received her 200-hour yoga teacher certification in 2022, and went on to complete the Essentials of Mindfulness MNDFL certification with Radical Dharma author Rev. angel Kyoto williams in 2023. From 2020 to 2022, she was an Artist in Residence at RedLine Contemporary Art Center in Denver, where she developed Flow State, a meditative painting class that explores embodiment through large scale abstract painting. She currently teaches these classes with various organizations across Colorado, aiming to integrate yogic practices into art spaces throughout the community.

Instagram Handle: @darlene____________

Soraya Latiff (she/her/ella) is a trauma-informed wellness guide and liberatory healing advocate with over a decade of experience teaching social and healing justice in K-12 schools, universities, and communities, and is now a full-time wellness entrepreneur. Originally from Trinidad and Tobago, she draws on Afro-Caribbean, Indo-Caribbean, and Kalinago ancestral wisdom to integrate yoga, Pilates, somatic coaching, and Reiki, guiding individuals and communities toward healing and collective freedom. Soraya’s mission is to help us return to freedom through embodied movement and transformative action, bridging personal and social liberation. As a founder, educator, and international collaborator, she has led efforts to decolonize wellness spaces, center wellness in education and businesses, advance social justice through holistic practices, and train trauma-informed practitioners of color, creating transformative pathways for collective resilience, belonging, and liberation.

Instagram Handle: @empathygrown

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About the Artists

Liz Magic Laser (b. 1981) is a multimedia video and performance-based artist from New York City. Her work intervenes in semi-public spaces such as bank vestibules, movie theaters and newsrooms, involving collaborations with actors, surgeons, political strategists and motorcycle gang members. Her recent work explores the efficacy of new-age techniques and psychological methods active in both corporate culture and political movements. Laser’s work has been shown at venues such as Kunsthalle Baden-Baden (2019); Metro Pictures, New York (2018) Malmö Konsthall, Sweden (2017); the Swiss Institute (2016); the Whitney Museum of American Art (2015); Lisson Gallery, London (2013); the Performa 11 Biennial, New York (2011); and MoMA PS1, New York (2010). She has had solo exhibitions at CAC Brétigny, France (2017); Jupiter Artland Foundation, Scotland (2017); Kunstverein Göttingen, Germany (2016); Mercer Union, Toronto (2015); Wilfried Lentz, Rotterdam, the Netherlands (2015); Various Small Fires, Los Angeles (2015); Paula Cooper Gallery, New York (2013) the Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster, Germany (2013); and Mälmo Konsthall, Mälmo, Sweden (2012) among other places. She staged a daily performance and video installation at the Centre Pompidou, Paris (2018). Most recently she exhibited a major new commission, In Real Life (2019), an experimental reality show about online gig workers, at FACT, Liverpool, UK (2019).

Ronny Quevedo (b.1981) incorporates and subverts aspects of abstraction, painting, collage, cartography, and sports imagery in a practice spanning installation, drawings, and prints. Deeply engaged with notions of identity and the intersection of mainstream and historically marginalized cultures, Quevedo reenvisions pre- and post-colonial iconographies, offering nuanced examinations of personal and social histories.

Quevedo’s work has been the subject of numerous solo presentations, including Ronny Quevedo: ule ole allez, Locust Projects, Miami, FL (2022); Ronny Quevedo: offside, University Art Museum, University of Albany, NY (2022); and no hay medio tiempo / there is no halftime, Queens Museum, NY (2017), traveled to Temple Contemporary, Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Philadelphia, PA (2019), among others. Quevedo’s work is in the collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art, MD; Buffalo AKG Art Museum, NY; Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College, CO; Denver Art Museum, CO; Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, among others.

Karlo Andrei Ibarra ​​(b. 1982, San Juan, Puerto Rico; lives and works in San Juan, Puerto Rico) holds a BFA with concentration in Painting from the School of Plastic Arts and Design of Puerto Rico. His practice addresses sociopolitical questions through poetic and literary means. His artwork asserts the symbolic power of objects, materials, and words. He is also cofounder of the contemporary art space in Santurce, Puerto Rico, called Km 0.2.

Host or Publisher Museum of Contemporary Art Denver