Vasile Petrutiu - Founder & Executive Director - was born in Transylvania, Romania where he trained at the Romanian Academy of Fine Arts and graduated at the top of his class with the highest degree in the field of dance. After graduation he joined the Romanian National Opera and Ballet in Bucharest where he was spotted by the great director/choreographer Oleg Danovski, who invited him to join The Classical and Contemporary Ballet of Romania, as principal dancer and touring extensively throughout Europe, Canada and the United States. In 1982 he defected while on tour in USA. In 1984 Mr. Petrutiu established his residency in the United States and later got his US citizenship. He held the Principal Dancer position with several companies including Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Cleveland-San Jose Ballet, Dallas Ballet, Tulsa Ballet Theatre, Nevada Dance Theatre, Royal Winnipeg Ballet and Alberta Ballet. His distinguished career encompasses an extensive list of leading roles in the great classical ballets and many contemporary master pieces.

During his dance career, Mr. Petrutiu worked with noted personalities such as Frederick Franklin, Reid Anderson, Natalie Krassovska, Laura Alonzo and Flemming Flindt. In addition to dancing, Mr. Petrutiu also acted as master teacher, school director, ballet master, choreographer, and artistic director for several companies, most recently Southern Ballet Theatre, now Orlando Ballet, in Florida. Under his direction SBT, now Orlando Ballet, successfully eliminated its trailing deficit of over 400K, tripled season subscriptions and earned a surplus of 100K by the third year of his leadership.

In 2000, Mr. Petrutiu founded and incorporated The Ballet Academy of Central Florida and the Central Florida Ballet, guiding the two organizations to great success. The Academy reached an enrollment of over 300 students in just four months, and the professional company made its debut with Tutus, Tangos, and More. This program featured several of Mr. Petrutiu's ballets and was a smash-hit debut for the new company. In 2004 Mr. Petrutiu’s Nutcracker Production reached international attention being featured in USA Today and later highlighted by CNN Headline News as one of five outstanding Productions in the nation. Mr. Petrutiu has engaged many international stars during his career including Gelsey Kirkland, Fernando Bujones, Angel Corella, Irina Dvorovenko, Maxim Beloserkovsky, Sascha Radetsky, Yanis Pikieris, David Palmer and Dragos Mihalcea.

In 2007, Mr. Petrutiu inaugurated the World Ballet Competition, which became the first ballet competition to be entirely broadcast on the internet (with over 3.5 million views worldwide in 2012) and generated numerous magazine features, including two five page layouts in Dance for You Magazine based in Germany. In 2011, he led the Central Florida Ballet on its first international tour of "The Nutcracker" to Sibiu, Romania in partnership with the Teatrul de Balet Sibiu. The production received rave reviews and is set to tour in more cities internationally. In April of 2012, Mr. Petrutiu announced the expansion of the World Ballet Competition with a new format entitled "WBC Open" to do just that, open the door to more dancers worldwide to participate. Mr. Petrutiu is excited to continue working with professional dancers and students throughout the world as well as to bring quality in dance to Central Florida.