Beth Dean and the transnational circulation of Aboriginal dance culture: gender, authority and C. P. Mountford

One of the highlights of the young Queen Elizabeth II’s royal tour to Australia in 1954 was the command performance of an excerpt from the ballet Corroboree. Based on Aboriginal dance steps and performed to Australian composer John Antill’s 1946 symphonic ballet of the same name, also inspired by Indigenous traditions, the ballet told the story of a young boy’s initiation into manhood. The lead role of the boy initiate was played by the choreographer, a dynamic American dancer, Beth Dean, performing in a nylon brown bodystocking and make-up mimicking ochre bodypainting, her hair pulled back in a chignon that suggested the hairstyles of the central desert. A curious spectacle, indeed, as one young English woman watched another young, American woman, play out the initiation to manhood of an Aboriginal youth, as a symbol of Australia’s distinctive cultural identity.