Abdullah Jaffa Bey Khan was born in Seattle in 1930. His father was from Afghanistan and his mother was Italian. There’s no predicting who will decide they can’t live without ballet, but those with the calling are fated to find their way there. At nine, the boy who become Robert Joffrey began taking ballet to help with his asthma. He never looked back. Joffrey co-founded the Joffrey Ballet with his partner Gerald Arpino. Their company had a younger spirit than the New York City Ballet or American Ballet Theatre. It drafted off the counterculture and pop culture in exciting ways, while also embracing the classics, especially the works of Frederick Ashton. The company’s 1987 reconstruction of Vaslav Nijinsky’s 1913 Le Sacre du Printemps was major. To this day, the Joffrey invites everyone to classical dance, not with a gilt-edged card but with a “come as you are.” This multi-media exhibition looks at the challenges, ingenuity, and dedication it took to build a great American company. —Laura Jacobs

Advance tickets are required.