Career
She is also known as a translator of Italo Svevo. Born in London, she lived there for most of her life. She published poems in the modernist magazine The Open Window.
She entered into a lifelong relationship with the Orientalist and translator Arthur Waley, whom she met in 1918 but never married.
Her relationship with Arthur Waley was considered an indeterminate relationship in the eyes of observers such as Gerald Brenan. She traveled extensively, particularly in Bali and South Asia.
In the field of dance, she taught eurhythmics, investigated Indian dance and theatre traditions, and collaborated with Walter Spies on Dance and Drama in Bali (1937), which is still a standard reference for traditional Balinese dance and theatrical forms. She studied dance, at least in part with Emile Jaques-Dalcroze in 1913 and 1915, and subsequently taught dance until sometime in the 1920s.
She wrote on dance at various times for The Daily Telegraph, the New Statesman and Nation and Ballet (edited by Richard Buckle).
She published books on dance in Bali (1938), India (1953) and Sri Lanka (1957).