She studied ballet from a young age with Ruth Inglestone, Reina Berman, and Frank Staff in her home city and, later, with Nesta Brooking in London.

[4] She caught the eye of choreographer Kenneth MacMillan, who had been commissioned to create yet another dance version of The Rite of Spring, set to Igor Stravinsky's score that had caused such a ruckus at its premiere with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in 1913.

The range of roles in her personal repertory was broad, encompassing the classicism of Odette/Odile in Swan Lake and Nikiya in La Bayadère as well as the austerity of purely abstract works such as Song of the Earth, set by MacMillan to Gustav Mahler's meditative Das Lied von der Erde.

She was dramatically effective in such disparate roles as the ruthless Black Queen in Checkmate by Ninette de Valois, and the gentle Lady Elgar in Enigma Variations (My Friends Pictured Within), by Frederick Ashton.

[7] After many years on the stage of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Mason began a new phase of her career as a ballet mistress and teacher.