Posted on January 21, 2010 - by Venik

Russian skaters’ Aborigine routine causes upset in Australia

Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin, tipped for Olympic gold in Vancouver, wear brown costumes with Aboriginal motifs

Russia’s world champion figure skaters have been accused of demeaning Australia’s Aborigines with their latest dance routine, which has been tipped for gold at next month’s Winter Olympics.

Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin, who performed the dance today at the European skating championships in Estonia – have been accused of “ripping off” Aboriginal culture and “co-opting” Aboriginal symbols. In their “Aboriginal dance”, the skaters take to the ice in brown costumes adorned with white geometric motifs and green leaves. The music includes whooping, rhythmic chanting and shouting, and a didgeridoo.

Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, Bev Manton, an Aboriginal leader from New South Wales, called on the “talented” skaters to scrap the routine before the Vancouver games, describing the dance as insensitive and poorly judged.

“From an Aboriginal perspective, this performance is offensive. It was clearly not meant to mock Aboriginal culture, but that does not make it acceptable to Aboriginal people,” she wrote. “There are a number of problems … not least of all the fact both skaters are wearing brown body suits on their skins to make them look darker. That alone puts them on a very slippery slope.”

Manton said ceremony and image were sacred to indigenous Australians. “How do you think Australians would react if some Russians ice dancers dressed as Anzacs and acted out the doomed landing of ­Gallipoli?” she asked.

Russia’s ice skating federation expressed bafflement, and pointed out that all figure skaters had to perform a “world” dance as part of their two-routine competition programme. Examples included Argentinean tangos and Austrian waltzes.

Oleg Ovsyannikov, a former Olympic Russian skater, said he once dressed up as Buffalo Bill, the much-loved American bison hunter. His partner, Anjelika Krylova, appeared as an Indian princess. “We spoke to the American Indians and as a result we dropped the small crown which my partner had had on her head,” he said. “The dance was very well received. I’m sure that Oksana and Maxim are not trying to hurt anyone’s feelings. These kinds of dances are really rather typical.”

Ovsyannikov said he had no idea if the criticism was an attempt to sabotage the chances of the ice dancers, who are based in the US but are well-known in Russia. They won the world championships in 2009, and the European championships in 2008.

The Herald reported that the Sydney skaters Danielle O’Brien and Greg Merriman performed an Aboriginal dance in Korea in 2008. The pair had respected Aboriginal culture and consulted the “community”, the paper suggested.

Some Herald readers appeared unimpressed. “What a pathetic attitude taken by the ‘indigenous community’ to a perfectly legitimate performance, probably choreographed as a compliment and with no malice intended,” one blogger noted.

Figure skating grew in popularity in the Soviet Union from the 1960s onwards, later falling off with the collapse of communism. Recently, however, it has been enjoying a revival, largely due to the popular Saturday night figure skating show Ice Age, which pairs celebrities with former sports stars.

Domnina and Shabalin were both competing today and not immediately available for comment.

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