New York Theatre Ballet, the foremost chamber ballet company in the United States, will return to Tarboro, North Carolina on March 30, 2017 at 7:30pm to perform in the Edgecombe Community College Performing Arts Series, bringing a program of mixed repertoire. NYTB has performed in the series annually for the past four years.

Pam Tanowitz’s Double Andante, a 13-minute ballet for ten dancers set to the Andante movement of Beethoven's Sonata in DMajor #15, which will be played live on piano two times at different tempos. The dance is based on the "pas de deux" and will be used as a metaphor for the age-old notion of unrequited love. A duet set to music by Franz List, Run Loose is the first ballet choreographed by Gemma Bond especially for NYTB, as an up and coming choreographer from the corps of American Ballet Theatre. In Antony Tudor’s Judgment of Paris, the Greek legend is transferred to a French Café, late at night, where a drunken boulevardier makes his choice from three sad and aging ladies of pleasure. Set in a magical fairy kingdom beneath the roots of a great tree and filled with magic and poetry, Sleeping Beauty, choreographed by James Sutton, tells the fantastic tale of Princess Aurora from her fateful birth to her triumphant wedding. Tchaikovsky’s captivating score sets the mood for New York Theatre Ballet's unique one-hour version of this beloved classic.

These performances have been underwritten by the Furman Mathewson Memorial Trust of Edgecombe County Memorial Library and have played to sold-out houses three years in a row.  The performances have included an evening mixed program of balletic works for the general public and a Friday morning matinee of children’s programming for all second and third graders in the county free of charge.  Over 1100 students each year have been in attendance and the concert has been a great success.  Over 3000 students have been exposed to the art of dance through these programs.  In March of 2017, New York Theatre Ballet will return for the fifth year.

The Furman-Mathewson Trust

The Furman-Mathewson Trust of Edgecombe County Memorial Library is authorized “to provide a perpetual and continuing memorial to the Mathewsons" in the form of a continuing program of superior cultural, literary, educational or scientific presentations for the patrons of the Edgecombe County Memorial Library. The trust has previously helped to bring Maya Angelou, Nicholas Sparks, and B.B. King to Edgecombe County, and have sponsored free performances of Jasmine Guy and the Avery Sharpe Trio and the Regina Carter Quintet and for the past three years, the New York Theatre Ballet.

Media Sponsorship provided by Public Radio East

Contacts for interviews:

• Jim Marrow, Furman-Mathewson Trust advisory board chairman (252) 823-2131

• Anderson Ferrell, Furman-Mathewson Trust advisory board member (252) 827-4913

• Diana Byer, artistic director for the NY Theatre Ballet (212) 679-0401

• Eric Greene, Cultural Arts Director for Keihin Auditorium (252) 823-5166 ext 187