BTI HISTORY

Ballet Teatro Internacional Dance Company was founded in 2005 by dancer, choreographer and visionary Alvaro Maldonado, to bring latin-American cultural expression and the modern dance tradition to the world. For Maldonado while growing up in rural El Salvador during the height of a civil war, traveling to the world to pursue a professional dance career seemed a nearly impossible dream. Yet amidst the violence, death, and despair, his passion for dance sheltered him from the corrosive conditions and gave him the courage to keep striving towards his goals. - only 13 years after watching his first dance concert in El Salvador he was on a full scholarship student at the Alvin Ailey School in New York City. At age 23 he funded BTI with the mission of funding a groundgreaking Dance Company and educational center. It’s not a cliché to say that dance saved his life.

Realizing the transformative power of dance and the unyielding hope it inspires, BTI Dance Institute was founded with the aim to ensuring that the next generation of young people experience dance. Creating partnerships with other youth development organizations BTI developed Transformational Dance Training programs for youth at risk in El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Costa Rica, along with low cost performances executing then International cultural exchanges between American artist and Latin-American audiences.

After one year since it began programming as a 501 (c) 3 Non-profit organization offering outreach programs, and performance company, BTI expanded to operate as a full-fledged non-profit dance education institute. On 2010 BTI celebarted the grand opening of the company’s new studio space at 1515 14th Street Washington D.C. In 2011 BTI moved to it's new home and opened BTI Dance Institute at 1643 connecticut avenue, in the heart of Washingotn D.C. a training facility designed to foster BTI Dance Company, BTI Dance Training Programs and BTI Community outreach Initiatives – and will also allow us to continue outreach work in Central America.

BTI Dance Company company has gone on to perform for over 10 countries on North, Central and South America. In 2008, a U.S and fosters culturally unique and innovative collaborations between musicians and dancers, artists and audiences, and choreographers and composers. Through dance and music, the company strives to express human emotion, abstract concepts, and social commentary that reflect the intricacies of current and past global cultures. The company presents choreography and music by both established and emerging choreographers, and attracts dancers from all over the world to perform a repertoire of classical and contemporary ballet, modern dance, and aerial dance.