Typically, we go to the box office to see what the world thinks of our country. How did France’s cinemas frame us? How did an Iranian film-maker cast us? What cheesy soundtrack did a US documentary use to pan down our country’s skyline?
But now that we’ve got the Olympics, what better way to see our culture rigidly framed than through the stilted lens of ice dancing?! The sport — which requires that each pair of skaters perform an original dance to “folk music” – has gained a reputation with this weekend’s competitions of having the wildest, most racist costumes. Americans danced in Indian Saris, every other team East of the Mississippi threw on their cowboy/cowgirl gear, and the Germans tossed on leis to go the way of the hulu… But no one has gotten more flack for their heinous representation of another culture than the Russian duo of Domnina and Shabalin. Ranked number one at the World’s, they performed what commentators dubbed their “Original Aboriginal” routine.
Unbelievable, right? Photo Credit: DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP/Getty Images
If you’re already shaking your head in shame, just read on…
It’s the same routine they performed in Estonia late last year that angered Australia’s aboriginal tribes. The couple, in brown face-paint and full flesh-tone body-suits, bedecked themselves in faux tribal markings and did a jostling, jumpy routine intended to echo Aboriginal dance. But as Carl Bridge, from the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, noted — it was about as close to Aboriginal as the Na’vi are to a living race:
“The music isn’t Aboriginal music; the motifs that they have on them are not really Aboriginal ones — in fact they look more like New Zealand ones; and aborigines in their dances usually represent something very specific — every symbol has a meaning, every movement has a meaning. And if you don’t know that, you can’t do Aboriginal dance.”
The Russian crew has been publicly lambasted. Bev Manton, chairwoman of the New South Wales Land Council said:
“Aboriginal people for very good reason are sensitive about their cultural objects and icons being co-opted by non-Aboriginal people – whether they are from Australia or Russia. It’s important for people to tread carefully and respectfully when they are depicting somebody else’s culture, and I don’t think this performance does.”
To save face, the Russians trekked to give public penance to the nearest…
Oh, Australian aborigines live really, really far away? Well, then they’d shorten their route and give penance to those guys just down the highway — Canada’s First Nation Aboriginal Tribe. No matter that the distant tribes bear few cultural similarities!
To pay their dues, on Sunday they handed over Russian team pins and banners to chief executive of the Four Host First Nations, Tewanee Joseph, and in return were given traditional blankets of the Coast Salish tribal group. To let the blankets really “muffle” the tensions (har har), the two Russian skaters covered tossed them on after their next routine, as they awaited the results that would show they had fallen to fourth place.
To any who would continue to condemn their routine as racist — a mash-up of cultures, totally mis-understood — the team’s coach trekked around to reporters, toting pictures of actual Australian aboriginal costumes. “We didn’t make this up,” she said.
About the accusations, Shabalin was less apologetic than defiant: “Our purpose was the opposite. We want to honour the culture, to show a dance as it was 1,000 years ago in the Southeast Asian region. We are respectful towards all competitors and all nations.” We say: It doesn’t matter your intention. If the result is mocking a culture, it deserves an apology. And not an apology directed toward a totally different culture.
We couldn’t help wondering why they wouldn’t reneg on the whole thing and trot back to where they came from to practice a Russian folk dance. But then we thought of the costumes. Where Russians cover-up, Aboriginals show more skin. And everyone knows that even a flesh-toned suit is more sexy than a historically-accurate costume.
VIDEO:
Here they are in Torino performing the same routine earlier this year:
And here’s the Al Jazeera news story on the controversy:
