Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 2018 - 34

wide a variety of authentic aboriginal steps as possible, that it must
have a theme sufficiently universal
in appeal to the widest possible
public, but also that it must bring
clearly into focus the truth of the
aboriginal mind which has created
such fine poetry and so many fine
dancers. The theme we chose was
initiation. (Dean 1966, 11-12)
This recollection suggests that Dean
wanted to promote indigenous culture to
white audiences as an art form rather
than a tourist attraction, an intention
which was rare in 1950s Australia. This
assessment is shared by Stephanie Burridge, however, who adds that Dean's approach, learning indigenous dance steps
and translating them through her language of contemporary ballet, "involved
the appropriation of traditional material and would not be sanctioned today"
(Burridge 2012). John Stauffer's analysis
of 19th century printed images of Black
Americans (by white Americans) helps
to explain the disparity between the intention and the reality. He states that a
"black man as object acquired life and
humanity when represented as an art
object or performer" (2011, 68). Dean
wanted white audiences to appreciate
Aboriginal culture as an art through her
dancing, but, as Stauffer then argues,
the reasoning behind why she created
this work is contradicted by how she created it. In the act of performing their own
Western version of Aboriginal dancing,
Dean and her company negated any authorship and control of the cultural material by the traditional owners, claiming it
instead as their own.

Understanding Beth Dean

Ruth Elizabeth Dean was born in Denver, Colorado, in 1918, growing up between Denver, Paris, and Los Angeles
at a time when the common popularity
of blackface minstrelsy had seen it filter
down from stage to backyard entertainment. She trained in ballet in America,
Paris, and London before joining a New
York company that specialized in touring musicals. It has been suggested her
"fascination for Aboriginal dance also
derived from her interest in American
modern dance which, despite her training in classical ballet, provided the inspiration for her life's work" (Haebich and

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THEATRE DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY

SPRING 2018

Dean in Annie Get Your
Gun. Image courtesy of
State Library of NSW.

Taylor 2007, 68). She met her husband
Victor Carell, an Australian singer, in one
of these touring musicals, and she first
visited Australia with a production of
Annie Get Your Gun in which they both
performed. In their downtime during
the musical's three-year tour, Dean studied indigenous dancing in Australia and
New Zealand and reinvented herself as
an expert, touring productions of "ethnic
dances" around Australia, Europe, and
finally America. Some of her many roles
included an Aztec, Native Americans,
New Zealand Maoris, and Australian
Aborigines, all in "authentic" versions
of their costumes, but it was her role in
Corroboree that made her a household
name.
An assessment of the costumes
from Corroboree cannot help but return

to the same point of contention: Dean,
with designer William Constable, wanting the company of dancers to appear
as Aborigines on stage, costumed her
body in a way that appeared as though
she was wearing another's skin. When
the company of dancers are white, and
the others' skin is black, contemporary
reflection cannot ignore the echoes of
blackface minstrelsy in Dean's full-body
mask. Amongst the glowing reviews
of the 1954 Gala performance, critics
seemed drawn to references of skin.
One noted of the ballet's emotive quality: "If it does not quite get under the
skin, it at least pricks it" (Hayes 1954).
Another gushed, "[W]ith amazing sensitivity, Beth Dean has crept inside the
skin of our Aborigine" (Gardner 1954).
Historian Victoria Haskins muses that

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