Katlyn Addison was born in Ontario, Canada, and began her ballet training at the age of 10 at the Quinte Ballet School Of Canada. She later trained at Pacific Northwest Ballet, Boston Ballet, and Houston Ballet Ben Stevenson Academy.

Katlyn started her professional career as a Corps de Ballet member of the Houston Ballet in 2007 and in 2008, she received the Sarah Chapin Langham Award at Youth America Grand Prix. She joined Ballet West as a Corps de Ballet dancer in 2011 and was promoted to Demi Soloist in 2014, to Soloist in 2016, and again to First Soloist in 2018. Katlyn performed as a guest artist in Principal and Soloist roles with the Scottish Ballet in the fall and winter of 2019 to 2020. In 2021, Katlyn was promoted again. This time, she made history by becoming the first Black female Principal Artist at Ballet West in their 58-year history.

Katlyn has danced classical, neoclassical and contemporary ballets throughout her career including Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, George Balanchine’s Prodigal Son and Jewels, Williams Forsythe’s In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated, and Jiri Kylian’s Petite Mort and Return to a Strange Land. She has also performed in several world premieres to include Stanton Welch’s Medieval Babes; Val Caniparoli’s The Lottery; and Africa Guzman’s Sweet and Bitter. In 2016 Katlyn was the first black principal ballerina to perform the role of the “Sugar Plum Fairy” in Willam Christensen’s The Nutcracker.

In 2015 Huffington Post named her as one of the top “26 black female dancers you should know”, and she has regularly been featured in Pointe and Dance Magazine. Katlyn danced and acted in Miu Miu Woman’s Tales, a short film that premiered at the 2017 Venice Film Festival.

Katlyn’s love of ballet goes far beyond dancing beautiful roles and stretches into choreography and teaching. In 2015, she choreographed a new work, The Hunt, for Ballet West’s Choreographic Festival Program. She was again selected to create new works for the festival in 2018 (Hidden Voices) and in 2021 (Eden). She also created new ballets for the Utah Arts Festival (Unnamed) and the University of Utah Dance Department (Saint-George, The Composer, Frenchmen, and Creator).

She is a firm believer in using her platform to give back to her community and to help raise the voices of other minority artists. Katlyn has volunteered her time for the Redlining Project; Ballet West’s I CAN DO Program, and Curly ME. She also serves on the board of directors for the Utah Black Artist Collective.

Katlyn’s voice as a teacher stems from this yearning to give back. With over 15 years of experience as a professional ballerina, Katlyn sees the importance of passing along exceptional classical ballet technique. Her goal is to guide our future generations of dancers towards pushing the boundaries of artistry and skill while maintaining the key traditions of the past…

Learn more about Katlyn’s credentials as a dance Educator.