Beryl de Zoete


Beryl Drusilla de Zoete, also known as Beryl de Sélincourt was an English ballet dancer, orientalist, dance critic, and dance researcher. She is also known as a translator of Italo Svevo and Alberto Moravia.
Born in London, she lived there for most of her life. In 1902 she married Basil de Sélincourt, though the marriage lasted for only a few years. She published poems in the modernist magazine The Open Window. She entered into a lifelong relationship with the Orientalist and translator Arthur Waley, whom she met in 1918 but never married. Her relationship with Arthur Waley was considered an indeterminate relationship in the eyes of observers such as Gerald Brenan. She traveled extensively, particularly in Bali and South Asia.
In the field of dance, she taught eurhythmics, investigated Indian dance and theatre traditions, and collaborated with Walter Spies on Dance and Drama in Bali, which is still a standard reference for traditional Balinese dance and theatrical forms. She studied dance, at least in part with Emile Jaques-Dalcroze in 1913 and 1915, and subsequently taught dance until sometime in the 1920s. She wrote on dance at various times for The Daily Telegraph, the New Statesman and Nation and Ballet. She published books on dance in Bali, India and Sri Lanka.
According to Harold Acton, she had a tendency to overstretch the hospitality of her friends: when Paola Olivetti, a little vexed, went away from one of her villas, Beryl stayed on; she left only when the cook told her he was going on vacation.