After spending most of her childhood in London, South African born Ivy Conmee returned to Johannesburg to open a dance school which through the years created a tremendous interest in the Academy's work. Miss Conmee's name is invariably mentioned whenever reference is made to the Academy in South Africa.

She devoted many years of her life to the Academy's development and its training, being a founder member of the Royal Academy of Dancing in South Africa, a children's examiner and vice chairman of the South African Advisory Committee, and also a member of Grand Council.