Who Cares?

• Choreographer: George Balanchine
• Music: George and Ira Gershwin
• Costumes: Janet Marie Groom
• Lighting: Robert Neu
• World Premiere: New York City Ballet, February 5, 1970
• PBT Performance Date: April 7-10, 1994; November 28-30, 1997; April 20-22. 2007;

Program Notes

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.”