BETH DEAN ENTERTAINS

Taupo Times, Volume I, Issue 39, 8 October 1952, Page 4

BETH DEAN ENTERTAINS

FAMOUS DAN SENSE IN TAUPO Thanks to the Community Arts Sei^ vice Taupo was able to enjoy an uil~ usual type of entertainment on Tues^ day of last week when the cele.brated American danseuse Betfe. Dean gave a deli^htful recital &R. dance. and song before a most ap>nreciative audience which filled Rickit's Hall nearly to capacity. In her opening dance a technic&i' arrangement in sympathy with the Acceleration Waltz by Johairn Strauss Miss Dean was very cramped for space freedom of movement, Her interpretive dances — Bach?s "Jesu, Joy of Man's desiring" and "Introspection,, by Francois Poulene were particularly moving, and it was apparent that she lost herself completely in the part that she was playjng. The same remark applies to the negro spiritual dances "Sometimes I feel like a motherless child/' and "Were you there when I cructfied the Lord." Miss Dean also portrayed most eff ectively the dances of the American Indian tribes from "The Chanfc of the Corn Grinders" to the laments and tribal dances of the Kwakiu'l Indians and the Sioux and the "Eagle Dance" of New Mexicein which she most vleverly interpreted the movements of this majestic bird. Probably the piece-de-resistance of the prograimme came towards the close of the evening's entertainment? when at the special request of the C.A.S. Committee Miss Dean gave a charming rendering of Maori songs and dances. Not many of the public realise that Miss Dean spent many months learning the technique of handling the poi as a result of a long sojourn on the East Coast some veasr ago. It did not take them long, however to realise that here was a lady who was carrying a faithful interpretation of the deligihtful melodies of ?the Maori to audiences overseas who would have no other chance to hear them. This part of the programme was most enthusiastically received. In the intervals between Beth Dean's dances, her baritone husband Victor Carell rendered songs from different lands including a negro spiritual and songs from Southern India and aboriginal sources^, wbilst Mrs Fanny McDonald of Wellington who has proved a imost able aoopmpanist throughout Miss Dean's tour gave sshort piano interludes. The final item was a neat Spanish sketch in which Victor Carell played the part of the drunken countryman and Beth Dean appeared successtully as his sweetheart and the city dancer who taunted him„ The whole programme provided unusual entertainment and a delightful insight into forms of eulture in. different parts of the world.