Born in Sydney, Kathryn Bennetts studied at the Scully Borovansky School of ballet. At the age of 15 she continued her training at the Australian Ballet School at age 15. She joined the Australian Ballet three years later, afterwards she changed to the Stuttgart Ballet under the direction of Marcia Haydée rising to the rank of soloist. There she worked with renowned choreographers such as Sir Kenneth MacMillan, Glen Tetley, Hans van Manen, Lar Lubovitch, Heinz Spoerli, John Neumeier, Maurice Béjart and William Forsythe. An injury ended her dancing career earlier than expected but opened other possibilities. After completing an education as ballet teacher with Alexander Ursuliak, she began teaching in the John Cranko School in Stuttgart. Subsequently she taught at the National Ballet School in Toronto as well as for numerous companies worldwide. In 1989 William Forsythe invited her to join the Frankfurt Ballett as ballet mistress. In this position, Kathryn Bennetts has staged many of Forsythe’s ballets around the world on various companies, including the Ballet of the Paris Opera, Dutch National Ballet, Compañia Nacional de Danza, Australian Ballet, Ballet of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Ballet du Rhin, National Ballet of Canada, Stuttgart Ballet, Royal Ballet, Ballet alla Scala di Milano, Hungarian State Opera Ballet, New York City Ballet, Houston Ballet, Boston Ballet and the Ballet of the Mariinsky Theater.
Kathryn Bennetts became the Artistic Director of the Royal Ballet of Flanders in 2005. The company received the Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance in 2008 and was nominated as Outstanding Company by the London Circle Critics Awards in both 2008 and 2012. In June 2012 Kathryn Bennetts was awarded the Prix de la Critique by the Parisian dance critics for her work with the Forsythe repertoire at the Royal Ballet of Flanders. In 2020 she started collaborating with the European School of Ballet in Amsterdam as a Guest Ballet Mistress.
With William Forsythe’s Artifact Suite Kathryn Bennetts staged a work with the Vienna State Ballet for the first time in 2019. In the 2023/24 season the staging of Forsythe’s In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated follows.