Born in Denver, Colorado, Beth Dean
studied ballet in her home city from
an early age. In 1928 she moved to Paris
where she continued her dance training
with Leo Staats of the Paris Opera Ballet.
She returned to Denver in 1932 and, after
graduating from high school, returned
to Europe where she worked with Nicholas
Legat and performed briefly with Rene
Blum's Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. On
her return to America she performed in
series of musicals and in the operetta
The Waltz King, where she
met her future husband Victor Carell,
an Australian singer, whom she married
in 1944. Dean and Carell came to Australia
in 1947 when they both appeared in the
musical
Annie Get your Gun.
In 1953 Dean and Carell undertook an
eight-month study trip to a number of
Australian Aboriginal communities where
they observed Indigenous dance and ceremonial
activities. Later they drew on material
from this trip in a performance and lecture
series on the dances of ?the Pacific,
the Aborigines, and the Maori', which
toured throughout the USA, Australia
and New Zealand. The study trip also
provided source material for Dean's choreography
for
Corroboree, a dance work
to the score by John Antill, which had
its premiere in Sydney in 1954 and in
which Dean danced the leading role of
the Initiate. Dean's version of
Corroboree, which followed
on from an earlier version choreographed
by Rex Reid in 1950, was restaged for
the Captain Cook Bicentenary in Sydney
in 1970 when Ronne Arnold danced the
leading role. In the 1950s Dean also
choreographed a number of works based
on Aboriginal legends.
Dean created a number of works for the
early days of television in Australia.
They included
G'Day Digger in c. 1956
to music by John Antill, which featured
Dean, Valrene Tweedie and Colin Fitzgerald
in the leading roles, and
Dreaming Time Legends in
1965. This latter consisted of two works
- 'The First Boomerang' and 'The Birth
of the Waratah' - and was based on the
legends of the Aboriginal people of the
Burragorang Valley in New South Wales.
It too was danced to a score by John
Antill and featured Ronne Arnold and
Dean in the leading roles.
Both Dean and Carell were involved in
a number of major arts and dance festivals,
including the South Pacific Festival
of Arts (1971), the Pageant of Nationhood
(1964), and the Mexico Cultural Olympics
(1968). In 1968 Dean was invited to Mexico
City as part of the 1968 Cultural Olympics.
There she taught Indigenous dances, and
had her ballet
Kukaitcha performed by
the Ballet Folklorico de Mexico as part
of the production
Ballet of the Five Continents.
On their return from Mexico, Dean and
Carell helped the government of the Cook
Islands establish the Cook Islands National
Arts Theatre, which they later brought
to Australia in 1970, and 1973 for the
opening of the Sydney Opera House.
In addition to dance research and to
performance, both onstage and in television,
Dean's career has also encompassed writing
and criticism. She was dance critic for
The Sydney Morning Herald
for a number of years and was also the
Australian correspondent for the American
monthly publication
Dance Magazine. Her publications
have included works of biography as well
as works on dance.
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