It was founded in 1987 by former ballet dancer Jean Weidner Goldstein and is now acclaimed for its performances of Sir Frederick Ashton's ballets under its director Iain Webb and assistant director Margaret Barbieri.

These included Birthday Offering, Illuminations, Les Rendezvous, Sinfonietta, and Valses nobles et sentimentales.

[7] In February 2016, Joseph Volpe, retired general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, was appointed executive director.

The company includes thirty-seven professional dancers and eight apprentices (as of 2019) from around the world, many of them young Americans.

Barbieri has staged 22 ballets for The Sarasota Ballet, including Sir Peter Wright's Giselle and Summertide;[8] Sir Frederick Ashton's The Two Pigeons, Façade, Birthday Offering, Les Patineurs, Les Rendezvous, La fille mal gardée, Valses nobles et sentimentales and Jazz Calendar; Dame Ninette de Valois' Checkmate and The Rake's Progress; John Cranko's Pineapple Poll; Christopher Wheeldon's There Where She Loved and The American; Michel Fokine's Les Sylphides[9] and Petrushka and Rudolf Nureyev's Raymonda Act III.