Kathryn
Bennets

Jury member of Benois de la Danse

Born in Sydney, Australia, Kathryn Bennetts studied at the Scully Borovansky School of Ballet and was accepted into the Australian Ballet School at age 15. After joining the Australian Ballet she toured extensively throughout Australia and Europe. She joined the Stuttgart Ballet under the direction of Marcia Haydee three years later rising to the rank of soloist. During her nine years with the company she worked with Sir Kenneth MacMillan, Glen Tetley, Hans van Manen, Lar Lubovitch, Heinz Spoerli, John Neumeier, Maurice Béjart and William Forsythe. She was especially featured in several ballets by William Forsythe who immediately recognized her talent and gave her many opportunities. An injury ended her dancing career earlier than expected, but opened other possibilities.

After completing a two year teachers▓training course with the ballet master of the Stuttgart Ballet, Alexander Ursuliak, she began teaching in the John Cranko School in Stuttgart. She was then senior teacher at the National Ballet School in Toronto, Canada, where she stayed for three years. During this time she guest taught for numerous companies worldwide. These include the Stuttgart Ballet, Australian Ballet, Sydney Dance Company, Finnish National Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, Nederlands Dans Theater, Zurich Ballet, Vienna Opera Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet, Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Ballet West, Houston Ballet, and La Scala, Milan.

In 1989 William Forsythe invited her to return to Europe to join the Frankfurt Ballett as ballet mistress. For the next 15 years she was responsible together with the other staff for the daily runnings of the company, teaching company classes, running rehearsals and organising scheduling.

At the request of the dancers, she gave two teacher's training courses at the company. Kathryn Bennetts has also set many of Forsythe's ballets on various companies including the Paris Opera Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, Compania de Danza (Nacho Duato), Australian Ballet, Ballet of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Ballet du Rhin, National Ballet of Canada, Stuttgart Ballett, the Royal Ballet, the Ballet of La Scala, Hungarian State Opera Ballet, New York City Ballet, Houston Ballet, North Carolina Dance Theater, Boston Ballet, Ballet West, American Ballet Theater Studio Company and the Kirov Ballet.

Since June 2005 Kathryn Bennetts is artistic director at the Royal Ballet of Flanders.

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