Mounsey, Yvonne (c. 1921–)
Mounsey, Yvonne (c. 1921–)
South African ballet dancer. Born c. 1921 in Pretoria, South Africa.
Trained locally and in Paris with Olga Preobrazhenska and Lyubov Egorova; moved to US where she worked at School of American Ballet (NY); performed with touring companies of Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and Original Ballet Russe in US (1940s), performing featured parts in numerous classical repertory works such as Les Sylphides, Swan Lake, and Giselle; danced with New York City Ballet (1949–59), appearing in Balanchine's Prodigal Son and Robbins' The Cage (1951), and creating roles in Robbins' Age of Anxiety (1950) and Balanchine's La Valse (1951) and The Nutcracker (1954), among others; returned to South Africa (1959) where she was one of the founding members of Johannesburg Ballet; became director of Westside Ballet in Santa Monica, CA.