Beth Shelton

Beth Shelton has been a well-known choreographer and community artist. In 1983, she co-founded the Danceworks Dance Company, and from 1989 to 1991, she was the company’s co-artistic director. Beth was the key artist for the Preston Creative Living Centre’s 1996 project Once Upon Your Birthday.

Beth has written about community dance, in the books If You Can Move You Can Dance, published in 1994, and Dancers and Communities, published in 1997. She’s been a committee member of three dance enterprises: Ausdance Victoria, Napier Street Theatre, and Community Music Victoria. With the director Tim Newth, she directed a 100-dancer performance on Queensland’s Magnetic Island, for the Ausdance National Youth Dance Festival, and co-facilitated Moving On 2000, the first national gathering of community-dance workers. She used her choreography, community-performance work and teaching to reflect her interest in artistic expression.  

She is now Dr Beth Shelton, the National Director of the National Eating Disorder Collaboration (NEDC), leading a team which develops and implements consistent national standards for the prevention and treatment of eating disorders.  Dr Shelton is a psychologist with a private practice in Melbourne, working with individuals with eating disorders and their families and a consultant and educator in the areas of eating disorders and body image. Dr Shelton is past president of the Australia and New Zealand Academy for Eating Disorders.