00:00The Testament of Anne Lee is about the woman who started the Shaker Movement.
00:08The Shakers lived their life in song.
00:11That was just part of their worship.
00:13They moved and they shook and they were ecstatic.
00:16Using the rhythms of these breaths, these body slaps,
00:20that rhythm would take you through the film.
00:22Legend has it, this is what happened to Anne Lee.
00:30The first collaborators I brought in was Celia Rausenholt, who choreographed the film,
00:34and Daniel Blumberg.
00:36Daniel composed the score and wrote original songs for the film,
00:41inspired by Shaker hymns or poems or texts.
00:48After reading the script, the first sounds that I heard in my head
00:52were vocal sounds, body sounds, and from there I started adding melodies.
01:00There's over a hundred minutes of music in the film.
01:04All of it was recorded in strange places.
01:07So it's got this really wild sound that I've never heard before.
01:12We'll go out and make our presence known.
01:18Getting Daniel's music really informed a lot of the choreography.
01:23Breathing, singing, stomping, moving the limbs.
01:28Celia works in quite a similar way to some of the musicians that I work with.
01:32There's this sort of improvised quality.
01:34So now we throw the dance away and we just exist.
01:38We want to make sure that it feels very authentic to the actual religion.
01:44To reach this spiritual place through the physical body.
01:48It takes a very specific kind of skill to create a dance that feels completely improv.
01:58And a sway.
02:00Bringing it together.
02:02We had a full roadmap before we'd even walk onto set.
02:08I knew exactly where the camera was going to be.
02:12We just worked hours and hours and hours for weeks.
02:16I couldn't breathe sometimes.
02:18Amanda was working with the choreography almost a year in advance of shooting.
02:23To be able to sing live, dance, perform was hard.
02:28But I love that challenge.
02:29With Anne Lee, I knew that I needed someone who was just willing to just completely give themselves to this performance.
02:36To see Mona make such an ambitious project on this scale is impressive and inspiring.
02:45When you watch 200 people dancing and singing together, you become part of that sort of intoxicating feeling.
02:55The feeling of it and the heartbeat of it is absolutely one of a kind.
03:01The time is near at hand.
03:03I know it.
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