A group of 12 teenagers from various backgrounds enroll at the American Ballet Academy in New York to make it as ballet dancers and each one deals with the problems and stress of training and getting ahead in the world of dance.

Director-choreographer Susan Stroman and librettist John Weidman construct an evening of three dance plays. The first deals with a "swinger" couple and their servant, whose sexual games suddenly change; the second finds an unhappy 1950s wife imagining herself the belle of a restaurant she attends with her abusive husband; and the final piece allows a suicidal executive to find life again chasing after a mysterious girl in a dance bar.

When young dockworker Jude leaves Liverpool to find his estranged father in the United States, he is swept up by the waves of change that are re-shaping the nation. Jude falls in love with Lucy, who joins the growing anti-war movement. As the body count in Vietnam rises, political tensions at home spiral out of control and the star-crossed lovers find themselves in a psychedelic world gone mad.