Skaters upset Aborigines

SYDNEY - Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin turned heads when they unveiled their new routine at the Russian figure skating competition in St Petersburg last month.

But their performance of an Aboriginal dance, wearing dark body suits and traditional-style paint markings, has infuriated indigenous elders in Australia.

The Moscow-based pair won the ice dance prize at the national competition, and are to perform the same routine at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver next month, where they are favourites for a gold medal.

But Bev Manton, chairwoman of the New South Wales Land Council, said she and other Aboriginal leaders were offended by the appropriation of their culture.

Domnina and Shabalin have also been accused of stealing their idea from two Sydney skaters, Greg Merriman and Danielle O'Brien, who staged an Aboriginal dance at a competition in Korea in 2008.

The Australian pair say they held lengthy consultations with Aboriginal officials to ensure their routine was not offensive.

"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," Manton told the Sydney Morning Herald.

"It's important for people to tread carefully and respectfully when they are depicting somebody else's culture and I don't think this [the Russian] performance does."

Merriman and O'Brien failed to qualify for Vancouver through injury.

The Russian pair, who won the world ice dancing championships last year, told the ice skating website Golden Skate they looked at several dance styles but "eventually settled on this one".