Yvonne Mounsey, owner of the Westside Ballet Company and former principal dancer for New York City Ballet, died Sept. 29 in Los Angeles at the age of 93 after a long illness. The ballet dancer, choreographer and teacher of eight decades put on annual performances of “The Nutcracker” at Pepperdine University with the company.
Mounsey was born Yvonne Leibbrandt in South Africa and was the middle of three children. She began dancing at 16 with the Carl Rosa Opera Company and afterward worked with Massine’s Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo and Colonel de Basil’s Original Ballet Russes. She also worked as a dancer throughout Latin America during World War II.
After the war, in 1948, Mounsey returned to South Africa, but soon moved to New York City and began taking classes at the School of American Ballet. Mounsey joined the New York City Ballet in 1949. In less than a year, she was named principal dancer.
In 1958, Mounsey retired from New York City Ballet and returned to South Africa, where she married childhood friend Kelvin Clegg in 1960. She had two previous marriages to Duncan Mounsey and Albert Hall Hughey. While in South Africa she co-founded South Africa’s leading ballet company, The Performing Arts Council of the Transvaal.
In 1965, Mounsey and her family moved to Los Angeles, where she began teaching ballet. She eventually took over the school, renaming it the Westside Academy of Dance. The school’s resident ballet company, Westside Ballet of Santa Monica, began performances of “The Nutcracker” in 1972 and delighted audiences in the Los Angeles area for decades.
Mounsey was honored with the 2002 Lester Horton Dance Award for Lifetime Achievement and the 2008 Gabriella Axelrod Education Foundation’s Award for the Advancement of the Arts.
Mounsey is survived by her sister, Roshild Collard of Cape Town, South Africa, daughter Allegra and grandson Marcus of Los Angeles, and by stepsons Christopher Clegg of Los Angeles and Stephen Clegg of Lincoln, Neb.
A public memorial service for Yvonne Mounsey will take place Oct. 14 at the Wadsworth Theatre, 11301 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, at 3 p.m.