‘It felt feral!’ The dance dynamo behind The Testament of Ann Lee’s sweat-soaked rituals

Spurred on by a vision of the Shakers’ founding leader, Celia Rowlson-Hall masterminded the whirl of movement in Mona Fastvold’s feverish film ‘I’ll tell you something I’ve not told anyone,” says Celia Rowlson-Hall. “This might make me sound a little wild, but I don’t care.” The choreographer is recounting her experience on The Testament of Ann Lee, a fever dream of a film starring Amanda Seyfried as the leader of 18th-century Christian sect the Shakers, whose ecstatic prayer rituals could in...

By Lyndsey Winship