It's not easy running a major ballet company — you have to deal with daily headaches, budgets and dancer dilemmas, not to mention create groundbreaking choreography. Houston Ballet Artistic Director Stanton Welch handles it and still manages to create dances that dazzle. Whether he's restaging classics and creating his own full-length ballets, like the 2006 Swan Lake, or doing cutting-edge works, like this year's A Doll's House, he's in his element. His dance-making is matched only by his talent at collaborating with designers, composers and costumers to create fabulous new works. Welch already has an impressive body of work for a contemporary choreographer; he's much in demand at major ballet companies around the world and shows no sign of slowing down. He already has a new full-length in the works for next season.