Eros and thanatos are entangled in this intense baroque dance piece 

In religious art death and ecstasy have met for centuries. The cult of suffering is a source of artistic fascination in it. Even more : death is a sort of ecstasy in it which arouses intense emotions. But as a way for the artist to get outside himself it is also a source of great art. Paradoxically enough the christian faith considers killing and the almost sexual ecstasy of the artist as sinful.

In La Mort & l'Extase Tatiana Julien brings ten dancers, one singer (Rodrigo Ferreira) and fifteen amateurs together in a gigantic tableau vivant. Julien wants to make the old pictural beauty resonate today, in a time that seems to have forgotten the harmony of 18^th century art. Everything contributes to this entirely baroque composition : the dramatic vitality, the intense clair-obscure, the Stabat Mater by Vivaldi (1678-1741). Stark naked the dancers appear for the last judgment.

Tatiana Julien in Le Parisien : 'There are a lot of prejudices about nudity. But what exactly disturbs us in it ? The exhibitionism, the eroticism or the confrontation with our own shame ? It is the mission of art to raise moral problems and to break through prejudice.'

When Tatiana Julien graduated from CNSMDP and the University of Paris VIII she became a performer with a.o. Thomas Lebrun and Olivia Grandville. In 2011, at the crossroads of her many cooperations, she founded the company C'Interscribo. Meanwhile she has made several creations with it, of which La Mort & l'Extase from 2012 was the first. Afterwards followed the three-part Douve (2012,2013,2014), Ruines (2014) and Initio, an opera she wrote together with the composer Pedro Garcia-Velasquez and Le Balcon. From 2015 to 2017 Tatiana Julien was a choreographer of Dancing Museums, an ambitious European project with four other choreographers and ten amateurs with whom she performed in the Paris Louvre and the National Gallery in London. At NEXT Festival Julien also presents the solo Soulèvement this year.

“Tatiana Julien a conçu, avec La Mort & l'Extase, une oeuvre puissante” –  Jean Marie Gourreau, Critiphotodanse