Casting
Tero Saarinen — Coreógrafo
Sobre el programa...
Surrounded by artists who work to make the memory of this community last, Raymond St‑Jean offers to explore the cultural heritage of the Shakers through dance and singing, but also with architecture and woodcraft.
The golden age of the Shakers stopped at the end of the 19th century. This religious community whose maxim was “beauty stops where utility starts” inspired, with ideas and creations that were very innovative for that time, the spirit of minimalist furniture, modern architecture and functionalism. Nowadays, the Shakers are still renowned for the quality and purity of their furniture, of their construction or of their landscaping. Apart from those know-how, they had a great artistic instinct since they wrote beautiful work songs and spiritual anthems, and used to dance until ecstasy during religious rituals.
Inspired by this culture, choreograph Tero Saarinen created Borrowed Light, a work about life in communities and individual sacrifice. It is mainly with this work, from which he takes extracts, that Raymond St-Jean explores in this documentary the cultural heritage of this lost civilization of which only artefacts remain. Filmed in Finland and in the United-States, A Chair Fit for an Angel is also punctuated with exclusive interviews.
Although the history of the Shakers appears in the background, it is not the core of the movie. Raymond St-Jean focuses more on understanding how such a community could inspire, centuries later, a contemporary Finnish choreograph. He also wonders about the paradox of the Shakers, who, without being interested in art or any idea of beauty, created such amazing and long-lasting works.