Practice: Change — The Africa Yoga Project

Practice: Change follows the Africa Yoga Project — an organization that uses yoga to build an economy of teachers across Kenya. Founded by Paige Elenson, the project drew Baptiste Power Yoga's Baron Baptiste to lead a 2009 teacher training. Anthem was invited to document it. What began as two weeks became years — tracing participants as the training's impact compounded over time.

DIRECTOR’S NOTES:

I came to this story as a practitioner of Baptiste Power Yoga and personally connected to the community that made this project possible. Being invited to document the 2009 Kenya teacher training changed the direction of my life as a filmmaker, and cemented a creative partnership with cinematographer Dylan Trivette that became the foundation of Anthem Multimedia. One of the film's most important creative decisions came after we left Kenya. We couldn't follow dozens of storylines from an ocean away — so we purchased inexpensive cameras and distributed them to more than a dozen students, who filmed their own lives for a year. Their footage doesn't just add texture. It grounds the film in a truth that we as outsiders could never have accessed

Winner: New England Emmy - Outstanding Documentary - 2012