La Bayadère at Academy of Music, Philadelphia

Pennsylvania Ballet has deep ties to dance history. The company was formed in 1963 by Barbara Weisberger, a protégé of the great George Balanchine. Perhaps due to that remarkable connection, the ballet's mission has always been to celebrate the classics. An annual staging of Balanchine's The Nutcracker and other favorites pay tribute to dance's traditional beauty. But the artists still look to the future of the art form, which surprisingly doesn't involve pieces set to laserbeats. The group is known for innovative takes on canonical fixtures, from a re-imagined Swan Lake to the world premiere of Matthew Neenan's Carmina Burana.