Dirty Dancing

Kate is a choreographer, director and teacher. She has worked for arts companies and institutes including Company B Belvoir, One Extra Co, Sydney Theatre Company, The Song Company, Legs on the Wall, NIDA, Australian Theatre for Young People, The English National Opera, Dance North, Theatre of Image, Dance Exchange, Tantrum Theatre, Vitalstatistix, The Australian Dance Theatre and DV8 Physical Theatre.

She is the Artistic Director of Force Majeure a dance-theatre company based in Sydney. In 1985, with a grant from the Australia Council, she went to New York to study. Returning to Australia she became a founding member of Dance North in Townsville before moving to Adelaide to become part of Australian Dance Theatre.

In 1992 she travelled to London, working with DV8 Physical Theatre as production assistant and then performer on Strange Fish both stage and BBC film versions. In 1996, Kate was the recipient of Arts NSW's Robert Helpmann Scholarship for choreographic excellence. That same year, with assistance from Performing Lines, she created and performed her solo work Face Value, which toured Australia two years later. This production earned her a 1998 Green Room Award and a MO Award.

In 1997, she choreographed Neil Armfield's internationally acclaimed production of Cloudstreet, and directed and devised Under the Influence for Legs on the Wall, which premiered at Belvoir Street and toured internationally to the Edinburgh Fringe and Riverside Studios, London. The following year she re-joined DV8 as rehearsal director on a European tour of Enter Achilles and collaborator and performer on The Happiest Day Of My Life. In 2000 she worked for the DV8/Olympic Arts Festival production of The Cost of Living.

In June 2001, the Sydney Opera House commissioned the premier of a new solo show called About Face. In 2002 the Sydney and Melbourne Festivals co-commissioned Same, Same But Different, the first performance by the newly created company Force Majeure. The highly acclaimed production was a sell-out success and won a 2002 Helpmann Award for Best Visual or Physical Theatre Production. That year, Kate also won the Helpmann Award for Best Female Dancer for About Face.

In 2003, Kate performed her two solo shows About Face and Face Value together in a combined program called face2face, which toured to Brisbane, Adelaide and Melbourne.

Kate choreographed the world premiere of Dirty Dancing which opened in Sydney November 04. She was also the choreographer on Cate Shortland's award-winning feature film Somersault.

Kate directed Force Majeure's second major work Already Elsewhere at the Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House for the Sydney Festival which also toured to the Biennale de la Danse in Lyon.

In 2008 Kate directed Force Majeure's new production The Age I'm In for the Sydney and Adelaide Festivals.