In the early 1940s, during World War II, she was a student at the Hochschule für Musik Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, where she focused on voice training but also studied keyboard, opera, acting, and directing.
Active for many years, until 1996, the company was known for the accuracy of its choreographic recreations, based on dance instruction manuals of the times, as well as the manner and styles of movement and the design and construction of costumes.
One of the first fellows of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study of Harvard University, she also taught at the New England Conservatory of Music, Mount Holyoke College, the Cambridge Center for Adult Education, the Dance Notation Bureau, Northeastern University, and the Longy School of Music of Bard College, a conservatory located in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
She regularly presented research papers at scholarly meetings, especially the annual conferences of the International Medieval Congress held in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where she often organized the music sessions.
An affable, outgoing scholar, with a winning personality and a strong sense of humor, she was a popular speaker and organizer of many early music workshops and festivities.