Our Mission: Education, Opportunity, Outreach
Since its founding in 1999, Ballet Theatre Company has become firmly established as a significant contributor to Greater Hartford's cultural community. Our mission is threefold:
- To provide professional-caliber dance training to highly-motivated dancers;
- To offer opportunities for Greater Hartford's dancers, and those who support them to participate in the creation and presentation of professionally-produced dance performances;
- To enrich our community by offering dance performances, dance education, and performance opportunities to those who might not otherwise be able to participate.
Community Outreach: Connecting With Dance
A key component of Ballet Theatre Company's mission is enrich our community by offering dance performances, dance education, and performance opportunities to those who might not otherwise be able to participate, especially children. Through its Children's Enrichment Program (CEP), the Company introduces area children to live theater and classical dance. Each year, through the generous sponsorship of its patrons, the CEP brings hundreds of disadvantaged children from the Greater Hartford area to holiday performances of Nutcracker. The Company has hosted children from Salvation Army's Marshall House Shelter; Salvation Army's Girls Inc Program; Nutmeg Big Brothers & Big Sisters; Gray Lodge Shelter for Young Women of Hartford; and the Hillcrest Area Neighborhood Outreach Center. Children from Hillcrest and Gray Lodge attend special dance classes at the Ballet Theatre Company facility.
Throughout the year, Ballet Theatre Company brings dance into the community by participating in activities such as the annual Nutcracker Tea offered to all area children (presented by West Hartford's Parks and Recreation department) and the Festival of Trees which benefits the Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum of Art in Hartford. The Company also performs at local elementary schools; over the past three years, the Company has performed the charming Après Degas (choreographed by Marguerite de Anguera) for second-grade students throughout the area as part of their introduction to the great master painters.
History of Ballet Theatre Company
Ballet Theatre Company was founded in West Hartford in 1999. During its first three years, the Company presented an annual spring repertory performance at the Gilman Theater, Greater Hartford Jewish Community Center. In December 2002, BTC accepted the invitation of Saint Joseph College to stage its first Nutcracker at the Hoffman Auditorium in the Carol Autorino Center for the Arts and Humanities at the College in West Hartford. This production has become an annual tradition for Ballet Theatre Company, the Hoffman Auditorium, and the Greater Hartford community. The Company's annual Spring Repertoire program, also held at the Hoffman Auditorium, has become a showcase for new, exciting works by regional choreographers. BTC provides the community with high-quality professional dance and provides its dancers a professional performing experience that serves as a critical bridge to major professional companies for those dancers hoping to make dance their full-time careers The Company's new dance school, Ballet Theatre Academy, has quickly established itself as a center for excellence within the Greater Hartford cultural community.
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