News Release

Note: For media kits and downloadable photos, see end of release

Ballet inspired by Monet art exhibit
coming to UNC’s Memorial Hall

CHAPEL HILL –  The Carolina Ballet will perform “Monet Impressions,” its original new work inspired by the art of French impressionist painter Claude Monet, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Carolina Performing Arts will present the two-part performance at 8 p.m. March 31 and 2 p.m. April 1 in the Beasley-Curtis Auditorium of Memorial Hall.

The performance by the state’s premier dance troupe is inspired by the North Carolina Museum of Art’s recent exhibition “Monet in Normandy” (October 2006 to January 2007) and is a joint effort of ballet choreographer Lynne Taylor-Corbett and artistic director Robert Weiss.

“Picnic on the Grass,” the first part of the ballet, is based on Monet’s “Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe” and set to music by Parisian composer Francis Poulenc (1899-1963). Monet painted the work about two years after the appearance of a painting of the same title by Edouard Manet.

“The Gardens at Giverny,” the second part of the performance, is influenced by Monet’s “Water Lilies, Evening Effect” and set to music by French composers Ernest Chausson (1855-1899) and Claude Debussy (1862-1918). The lifetimes of all three composers overlapped that of Monet, who lived from 1840-1926.

Tickets for “Monet Impressions,” $30-$60 and $18 for children under 12, are available online at www.carolinaperformingarts.org, by calling (919) 843-3333 or from the Memorial Hall Box Office on Cameron Avenue, open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. Tickets for Carolina students are $10. Tickets also are on sale for other performances. For more information, visit www.carolinaperformingarts.org.

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Note: For a media kit and downloadable photos, visit www.carolinaperformingarts.org/media.

Carolina Performing Arts contacts: Don Smith, (919) 843-3119, donsmith@email.unc.edu; Jennifer Warner, (919) 966-3834, jenniferwarner@unc.edu