Jeanette Vondersaar was born in Indianapolis, USA. She began her ballet training at the age of eight, with Jack Copeland at Butler University and later trained at the School of American Ballet and at Harkness House for Ballet Arts in New York City. She was leading soloist with the Harkness Youth Dancers (form 1968), the newly formed the Harkness Ballet (from 1973) and the Ballet of the Zürich Opera (from 1975).
Worked with the following choreographers and ballet masters from 1966 to 1975: Brian MacDonald, Jerome Robbins, George Skibine, Geoffrey Holder, Luigi (Eugene L. Facciuto), Marius Liepa, Anton Dolin, Anne Heaton, Jack Carter, George Tomal, Job Sanders, Norman Walker, Todd Bolender, Margo Sappington, Vicente Nebrada and Ben Stevenson; and form 1975 to 1976: Hans Meister, Donald Mahler, Laszló Seregi and Jürg Burth.
In 1976, she joined the Dutch National Ballet in Amsterdam and was principal dancer for 21 years. Her leading classical roles include: Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, Cinderella, Nutcracker and the Mouse King, Romeo and Juliet, Études, Firebird, Les Sylphides and the pas de deux Le Corsaire and Don Quixote. She also worked in close cooperation with the three Dutch choreographers: Rudi van Dantzig, Toer van Schayk and Hans van Manen. Her repertoire also included works by George Balanchine, Bronislava Nijinska, Martha Graham, Kurt Jooss William Forsythe and Nils Christe.
Her teaching experience began in 1980. Since then she has worked extensively as teacher and repetiteur for companies such as: The Dutch National Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theater, Introdans, Krisztina de Châtel, Scapino Ballet, Ballet Arizona, The Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, The Joffrey Ballet of Chicago, The Israel Ballet, The Finnish National Ballet, Stadtheater Bern, The Aalto Ballet Theatre in Essen, The American Ballet Theatre, The Star Dancers in Tokyo, Staatstheater Mainz and the Academies: Nationale Ballet Academie in Amsterdam, Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and The Showa University and Academia Musicae in Japan.
Presently she is a freelance teacher of Classical Ballet, repetiteur and primarily responsible for the restaging and supervision of The Green Table and other Jooss repertoire. Occasionally performs with the Dutch National Ballet in various character roles.