Robert Joffrey and Gerald Arpino's uniquely American vision of dance first took form in 1956. The original company consisted of six dynamic and highly individual dancers. While Robert Joffrey stayed in New York to teach ballet classes and earn money to pay the dancers salaries, Gerald Arpino led the troupe across America's heartland, in a station wagon that pulled a U-Haul trailer. Their repertoire of original ballets by Robert Joffrey set them apart from other small touring companies, who often performed scaled-down versions of the classics. From the beginning, Joffrey and Arpino wanted a company that came out of their roots, out of America.