American Ballet Theatre has a new artistic director, Susan Jaffe, who now embarks on her first fall season at the helm. Longtime ABT fans will remember Jaffe as a ballerina of luminous technique. She was launched in 1980, when Mikhail Baryshnikov, ABT’s artistic director, plucked her from the corps and threw her onstage in Pas d’Esclave, replacing Gelsey Kirkland. Forty-three years later, Jaffe’s in charge. Her fall season has three programs: “Classics Old and New,” “20th Century Works: Balanchine and Ashton,” and “21st Century Works: King, Ratmansky, and Bond.” The showstopping Études, a bombastic ballet primer, is on the classics program; and the 20th century’s Ballet Imperial and The Dream are stunners. The Fall Gala is October 24, and along with ABT principals it features dancers from the ABT Studio Company and students from the ABT Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School. —Laura Jacobs