The Russian world champions were surprised to learn that elders had accused them of stealing an Aboriginal dance idea and causing serious cultural offence.
'We didn't know anything about it,' a wide-eyed Domnina told reporters after scoring 61.49 points for the original dance, taking their total after two dances to 104.27 with Friday's free dance still to come.
The Russians had led by just under five points following Tuesday's compulsory dance and they have increased it slightly to lead Italy's Federica Faiella and Massimo Scali (99.15). Russia's Jana Khokhlova and Sergei Novitski are third (96.46).
Shabalin said they had done their homework but had never intended it to be an authentic Aboriginal dance.
'We researched a lot of information on the Internet. It's just from many thousands of years ago and it wasn't our goal (to be authentic),' he said.
Sol Bellear of the New South Wales state Aboriginal Land Council told Reuters earlier in the day: 'It's very offensive. We see it as stealing Aboriginal culture and it is yet another example of the Aboriginal people of Australia being exploited.'
The theme for the original dance was folk/country dance and Domnina said their routine was just like all the other skaters, drawing inspiration from other countries or cultures.
No comments:
Post a Comment