Yvonne Chouteau was born on March 7, 1929 in Fort Worth, Texas, USA. She was married to Miguel Terekhov. She died on January 24, 2016 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA.
She and her husband founded the School of Dance at the University of Oklahoma, as well as the Oklahoma City Civic Ballet, the forerunner of today's Oklahoma City Ballet.
She was part French and part Shawnee-Cherokee. She was one of five prominent Native American dancers who were raised in Oklahoma. The others were Rosella Hightower, Moscelyne Larkin, Maria Tallchief and her sister Marjorie Tallchief, now the last living member of the group.
She started dancing when she was 2 1/2 years old. She received training in Oklahoma and in New York City, where she attended the School of American Ballet. She was accepted into the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo at 14, becoming the company's youngest dancer at the time.