Choreographer: George Balanchine

Music: George and Ira Gershwin

Costumes: Janet Marie Groom

Lighting: Cindy Limauro

World Premiere: New York City Ballet, February 5, 1970

PBT Performance Dates: November 1997, April 2007

Program Notes (from PBT playbill, 2007)
By Carol Meeder, former Director of Arts Education

Gershwin and Balanchine, an unlikely combination? Not at all. It happened like this: "I played one and thought, 'beautiful,' " says he (Balanchine), " 'I'll make a pas de deux.' I played another, just as beautiful, I thought, 'a variation'. And then another and another, and there was no end to how beautiful they were." When George Gershwin gave Balanchine a book of his songs, the gift sparked the idea for Who Cares?, one of the most joyous of the Balanchine ballets. This fast-stepping, cheeky ballet evokes the lively spirit of Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers and the 1930s and portrays an exuberance that is broadly American and charged with a distinctive energy. Robert Sealy of Ballet Review says, "Who Cares? is wonderful. Never in a theatre have I wanted so much to jump the moat and join in. It is pure, unmitigated, uncut joy."