It may be fall, but when the Joffrey Ballet opened its 50th anniversary tour this weekend, summer still managed to hold the stage. Performing Sir Frederick Ashton’s The Dream – a fanciful adaptation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Joffrey dancers flit, spin and gallop around Fairyland as nymphs, sprites and even a donkey. Complete with graceful lines and acrobatic jumps, the fairies plot, the mortals are enchanted and the donkey falls in love. But in the end chaos is danced away and everything finishes in its proper place.

Brought back especially for this new two-year tour, Ashton choreographed The Dream in 1964 for two of his stars at the Royal Ballet. In 1973, the Joffrey became the first other company to perform the lighthearted Dream, which also marked the company’s foray into longer, more classical work. Performed at the Auditorium Theater, 50 E. Congress Pkwy., The Dream is a part of a tour to commemorate the co-founder of the company, Mr. Joffrey, since the last time the work was performed was on the day of death, in 1988.

Also accompanying the one-act Dream are Jiri Kylian’s Return to a Strange Land and Gerald Arpino’s Celebration. Kylian’s work is a series of breathtaking trios and duets performed to a solo piano, while Arpino’s Celebration is contrastingly described as “a folk-dance gone wild.” “It is a diverse evening of theater, ranging in choreographic styles from the classical wit of England’s Sir Frederick Ashton to the contemporary qualities of Jiri Kylian,” says Arpino, Joffrey’s remaining co-founder. “As a tribute to the season I’m reviving Celebration for the first time in 25 years.”

The Dream is playing at the Auditorium Theater through Oct. 30. Tickets cost between $15 and $125. Tickets and showtimes are available at www.joffrey.com or by calling (312) 902-1500.

– Jake Laub