Borrowed Light (2025)

Borrowed Light captures the ritualistic essence of dance and the profound strength of community. Inspired by the radical Shakers movement of the 1700s and 1800s, the work explores total surrender and devotion to a community. The live performance of original Shaker hymns by The Boston Camerata fills the space with ethereal harmonies that echo through the repetitive rituals of the movement. Collective identity can carry towards something greater, but at what point do its rigid values push the individual to the very limits of their devotion?

 

Borrowed Light was named after the architectural practice, common for the Shakers, of building windows into interior rooms, thus maximising daylight and productivity. Saarinen and Lighting and Set Designer Mikki Kunttu and Costume Designer Erika Turunen, approached light as a religious metaphor. The visual appearance of the work is rooted in the aesthetic of frugality and the accentuation of opposites. The costumes combine heavy felting with airy, transparent fabrics. The lighting design emphasises the opposite worlds of mystical shadows and piercingly bright light.

Borrowed Light, premiered in 2004 as an European co-production, was touring major venues in Europe, North America and Oceania in 2004–2014 and reached more than 50,000 people on tour.

Despite the strong influences of the Shakers, Borrowed Light addresses, according to Saarinen, the themes of communitarian society on a general level: “My main source of inspiration was the Shakers and I ended up using only original Shaker music, but this work is not about Shakerism. It is about community and devotion. To me the nature of total commitment – whether religious, artistic or political – is fundamentally the same.”

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​Choreography Tero Saarinen
Original Shaker music edited and arranged by Joel Cohen
Music direction Anne Azéma
Lighting and set design Mikki Kunttu
Costume design Erika Turunen
Sound design Heikki Iso-Ahola