Reid Anderson was born in Canada. Following his dance training in his home country and at the Royal Ballet School in London, he joined the Stuttgart Ballet in 1969. In 1978, he was promoted to Principal Dancer. After his successful career as a dancer, he became Artistic Director of Ballet British Columbia (1987), the National Ballet of Canada (1989), and the Stuttgart Ballet (1996), which je directed until his retirement in 2018.

From the outset, Reid Anderson followed a repertoire policy which placed equal weight on preserving and cultivating the Cranko legacy, maintaining the art of classical ballet, on acquiring the works of established neo-classical and contemporary choreographers and most especially on discovering and nurturing new choreographic talent. He commissioned works from choreographers such as Wayne McGregor, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Marco Goecke, Itzik Galili, David Bintley, Jorma Elo, Uwe Scholz, Christian Spuck, Demis Volpi, Mauro Bigonzetti, Edward Clug, and many others. In February 2006, Reid Anderson was awarded the German Dance Prize. 

Reid Anderson travels frequently in order to stage Cranko's masterpieces with famous ballet companies all over the world; these include the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow, the Royal Ballet, the Paris Opera Ballet, Australian Ballet in Melbourne, the State Ballet of Berlin, the Hamburg Ballet, the La Scala Opera Ballet in Milan, the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, the Boston Ballet, the Opera Ballet company of Rome, the Norwegian National Ballet, the Ballet of the Vienna State Opera and the Chinese National Ballet in Peking.