Yvonne Mounsey, a former New York City Ballet dancer who went on to open a West Coast ballet school and another in South Africa, died on Saturday, Sept. 29, of cancer at the age of 93 in her Los Angeles home.

Her daughter, Allegra Clegg, confirmed the report.

Mounsey performed major roles for George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins in the 1950s and was an acclaimed dancer, performing with the City Ballet from 1948 to 1958 and rising from soloist to principal dancer, according to Yahoo News.

Her daughter said some of Mounsey's favorite roles included the Dark Angel in Balanchine's "Serenade" and Siren in the choreographer's "Prodigal Son."

She performed around the world and with many different companies, including the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. After she stopped dancing, she moved back to South Africa and co-founded a ballet company there. Mounsey later moved to Los Angeles and became a director of the Westside School of Ballet, a prominent establishment in Southern California.

A former pupil of hers, Joy Womack, was the first American woman invited into the Bolshoi Ballet, according to the Los Angeles Times. Womack said of her teacher Mounsey, "Her most important lesson was to perform at all times, no matter what. That tiny correction formed the key to the opportunities God has blessed me with."

"I think she just got so much joy out of teaching, and she never stopped thinking about how she could make things better or help someone," her daughter said on Tuesday.

Mounsey was born in South Africa and began taking ballet lessons at the age of 7 with a former member of Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova's dance company, the news source reported. She left home at 16 to move to England and begin serious ballet training, later moving to New York City in 1948 and joining the New York City Ballet only a year later, after personally being invited by Balanchine.

She worked at the Westside School until June of 2012.