Performer: Joo Won Ahn

A strong opening to ABT’s fall season, the company often seemed stagnant in the last years of Kevin McKenzie’s directorship. It is now more exciting. New leadership, new faces.

Which choreographer's adaptation of A Midsummer’s Night Dream is superior, Ashton or Balanchine? This season, New Yorkers get to compare as ABT revives Ashton's The Dream as part of its Fall season. 

If the audience response was not very enthusiastic, it's because Ratmansky's Sleeping Beauty four years after its premiere still comes across as more of a museum piece than a living, breathing ballet. This is a Beauty that never really wakes up.