Inside 'The Testament of Ann Lee's' revolutionary devotional sequences

This is read by an automated voice.Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.

“The Testament of Ann Lee” stars Amanda Seyfried as the founder of the Shakers, a religious sect formed in the 18th century and known for both its pursuit of full social equality and its chants and dances designed to rid the body of sin.Using songs based on real Shaker hymns, the movie’s most technically ambitious and narratively gratifying scenes depict these vigorous motions as communal expressions of hunger, obedience, grief, devotion and ecstasy.“You can’t tell the story of Ann Lee without showing their worship, and we put a lot of thought into interpreting and creating that onscreen,” said director Mona Fastvold.

“We had lots of challenges — dancing in the woods with roots and holes, in a tiny room with hundreds of candles, on a ship with a real storm — and we only really had a half-day to shoot each one.But it was exciting to see how the constraints informed the movement.”The film’s Shaker dances are rooted in historical materials like Baroque and religious artwork, written descriptions from early believers and statements from various detractors.

“Their critics described their ‘wild’ worship in detail — how they’d dance for days at a time and make all these crazy sounds — and we definitely used that,” said Fastvold.“The most important thing was that all of the movements have meaning.

It couldn’t just be cool moves; it’s prayer.”Celia Rowlson-Hall, who worked with Fastvold on 2018’s “Vox Lux,” created choreography that charts the Shakers’ evolution.In scenes recounting their origins in Manchester, England, the believers reach upward with hunger in their eyes, lean on each other in collective caress and hit their chests hard, “almost like pounding the answers out of your body,” she said.

“These people needed to believe in something other than what they’d been given, so I wanted it to feel like a rave of excitement...