To begin his company’s second program at City Center on Friday night Christopher Wheeldon went back to basics with “Continuum.” Part of his trilogy of dances set to mysterious, prickly music of Gyorgy Ligeti, the work was created for the San Francisco Ballet in 2002 — the same year Mr. Wheeldon choreographed “Morphoses” and one year after the premiere of his breakthrough “Polyphonia.” In “Continuum” he shows how experimentation begins and ends with the body, and as with all of his most enchanting ballets, there is a sense, wistful and profound, that one is leaving an old world and entering a new one.

“The Widow’s Broom” may not sweep-you off your feet. But it may give you a lift.

Festival Ballet Providence’s original stage adaptation of Chris Van Allsburg’s book of the same name is now playing at Veterans Memorial Auditorium, perfectly timed for Halloween. It’s a show about a widow, of course, and a broom. But there’s also a witch, 13 actually.

Ballet West's 2009-2010 season opener, "The Dream," paid homage to its heritage, not only in the measurable terms of pioneer history or the impressive assemblage of regional vocalists and musicians, but also in presenting the original intention of classical ballet as entertainment.

Choreographer Sara Sanford has taken her vampire fascination and used it to create a piece featur­ing special effects and lavish cos­tumes and scenery with Philip Feeney's score to illuminate the story of Dracula.

"When you think your whole career is balanced on that little toe, you can see why it is a very serious thing to get the right shoe," she said. Geddes has been taking care of the dancers' footwear needs since 1998, measuring their size, ordering their shoes from overseas and teaching them how to mould the hard material to suit their comfort.

But she got her start with the National Ballet as a ballerina in 1959.

The spirit of Diaghilev is being honored most everywhere in this, the centenary year of the founding of the Ballets Russes. In his welcoming speech, Christopher Wheeldon, founder of Morphoses, added his voice to the chorus, citing the impresario's devotion to the spirit of the new and to collaboration among the visual and performing arts. To those ends, the company offered one newly commissioned work "Leaving Songs" by Tim Harbour, a former dancer with the Australian Ballet, and a potpourri of dance, film, and live music, with a dab of fashion, courtesy of Ruben and Isabel Toledo, thrown in. The power of collaboration was made visible even before the dancers stepped on stage.