Tracee Hamilton of the Washington Post, here, calls the decision by Russian ice dancers Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin to stick with the aboriginal costumes and music that spurred so much controversy “bizarre, to say the least.”

The pair skated in the original dance portion of the ice dancing competition in a routine that brought outrage from Australia’s aboriginal community after it debuted last month in Estonia.

They toned it down some: While both still wear brown body stockings adorned with leaves, and Shabalin wears a loincloth, the body stockings in question are lighter and Domnina no longer has white paint on her face.

And, while they scored well, audience response was decidedly tepid. Canadians Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir won the night’s competition, with Americans Meryl Davis and Charlie White coming in second. Domnina and Shabalin ended up in third.

In a Sydney Morning Herald editorial, Bev Manton, chairwoman of the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council, writes:

“Our dance, our ceremony and even how we look is the basis of much of our culture. Our designs and images have evolved over 60,000 years. We’re understandably fond of them, and we don’t like seeing them ripped off and painted onto someone’s body for a sporting contest.”

Members of the Four Host First Nations met with the pair last week and talked with them about cultural sensitivity, then gave them wool blankets with Coast Salish designs. The pair displayed those blankets after skating the compulsory portion of the competition a couple of nights ago, draping them over their shoulders as they awaited their winning scores.

Gwen Florio

Tags: 2010 Winter Games, aboriginal, Maxim Shabalin, Oksana Domnina, Vancouver Olympics

Will they or won’t they? Olympics viewers find out tonight if Russian ice dancers stick with aboriginal costumes
Russian ice dancers Maxim Shabalin and Oksana Domnina made a point – after winning the compulsory portion of their competition – of showing off the red, white and black blankets given them by members of Canada’s Four Host First Nations. The pair met with First Nations representatives who talked to them about cultural sensitivity after a furor arose over their Australian aboriginal-style costumes and music during an earlier competition, the AP’s Nancy Armour writes here. International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge even said he might intervene. But, says Shabalin, “Our routine was very fair, and we respect this culture.” He and Domnina remain coy as to whether they’ll wear the costumes – consisting of dark body stockings, white aboriginal-style markings, and large leaves – tonight in the Olympics.

No curse on Norwegian athletes, First Nations leader says
In fact, Bob Chamberlin, chairman of the Musgamagw Tsawataineuk Tribal Council and secretary treasurer of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, says cursing has never been part of First Nations tradition. Nonetheless, the Montreal Gazette reports here, there have been suggestions aboriginal people put a curse on the Norwegian Olympic team because of Norwegian-owned fish farms along wild-salmon migration routes.

Native ranchers praise settlement of black farmers’ suit; urge quick action on their own
The Obama Administration announced late last week that it will settle untimely civil rights claims of black farmers for $1.25 billion. Now, those involved in the 12-year-old case of Keepseagle v. Vilsack regarding Native farmers and ranchers urge the administration to follow up on talks it started in the fall with a quick eye toward resolving that suit, too, Farm Forum reports here.

Storage of nuclear waste on Indian reservations “economic racism akin to bribery”
Health News Digest says here that it gets why some impoverished tribes host hazardous waste on their sovereign reservations – which are not subject to the same environmental and health standards as U.S. land – as a way to bring in money. But Bayley Lopez, of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, says that “in the quest to dispose of nuclear waste, the government and private companies have disregarded and broken treaties, blurred the definition of Native American sovereignty, and directly engaged in a form of economic racism akin to bribery.”

Crow Creek Sioux Tribe launches telephone system
The Crow Creek Sioux Tribe’s lephone system is up and running on the reservation, according to the AP, here. Tribal leaders say the telephone and advanced broadband services provided by Native American Telecom-Crow Creek will pave the way for business, economic, social and educational development on the reservation.

Gwen Florio

Tags: 2010 Winter Games, aboriginal, buffalo post, Crow Creek Sioux Tribe, Four Host First Nations, Ice dancing, Keepseagle v. Vilsack, Maxim Shabalin, Musgamagw Tsawataineuk, Norwegian Olympic Team, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, nuclear waste, Oksana Domnina, Vancouver Olympics

World champion ice dancers Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin raised quite a ruckus when they competed in Estonia wearing dark body stockings with aboriginal-style paint, and danced to aboriginal music.

Aboriginal groups in Australia said it was offensive and amounted to cultural theft, and First Nations leaders in Canada met with the pair for a talk about cultural sensitivity. (See previous post, here.)

There are rumors, Associated Press National Writer Nancy Armour writes here, that the two will appear in new costumes during their Olympic routines.

“Maybe, maybe,” Shabalin said yesterday. “You will hear, you will see on the day of the original dance.”

As Armour reports:

In the original dance, couples can create any kind of dance that falls within an assigned theme. This year’s theme is country/folk, and skaters are doing routines to everything from Indian music to country-western to a Japanese fan dance.

“Two years ago, when we had the folk dance, 70 percent did it to Russian or Ukrainian music. It was like a competition of Russian dance or Ukrainian dance,” Shabalin said. “We thought (the Aboriginal theme) would be interesting, and we like this. We like the way they dance and their costumes.”

Shabalin tells Armour that Monday’s meeting with members of the Four Host First Nations went well, describing it as “very warm, very friendly.” The group gave them one of its traditional blankets, he says.

Gwen Florio

Tags: 2010 Winter Games, aboriginal, buffalo post, First Nations, Four Host First Nations, Ice dancing, Maxim Shabalin, Native American news, Oksana Domnina, Vancouver Olympics

Commodity Comedy Show draws on homegrown humor
You’ve heard of Goin’ Native, the Indian comedy slam that features the likes of Charlie Hill, Marc Yaffee and JR Redwater. Well, it’s hardly the only Indian comedy show on the block.
The last several weeks have featured the Commodity Comedy Show, one that took four Native comedians – Ernest David Tsosie III, Natasha Kaye Johnson, Tatanka Means and Drew Lacapa – on a 60-show tour that ended up earlier this month week in Gallup, N.M. Read about them in the Farmington, N.M., News here.

Alaskan foster mom shares culture as well as home
Anna Osip, 67, provides a much-needed service in the state of Alaska. She’s a Native foster mom to many, many Native kids. That’s important because Alaskan Natives make up a disportionate number of the state’s foster children – and there are few Native foster parents to go around. Osip keeps salmon strips on her table and a bowl of akutaq (Eskimo ice cream) in the fridge, the Anchorage Daily News reports here.

Calendar of influential Montana women features tribal member
Lissa Peel, the Indian Preference Coordinator for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, has been chosen for a calendar of influential women, the Char-Koosta News writes here. The theme is women working in jobs traditionally held by men. Peel spends most of her time on construction sites and, says a supervisor, does her work with “tenacity and grace.” Congrats!

First Nations look askance at Russian ice dancers’ indigenous routine

Russian ice dancers Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin have already heard objections from aboriginal people in Australia about their attention-getting – and award-winning – indigenous-style routine for which they don dark body stockings decorated with paint and leaves.

(Watch their routine here.)

The two are heavily favored to win a medal in Vancouver, where they plan to perform the same routine that provoked the controversy.

Now leaders of the First Nations involved in next months Vancouver Olympics want to talk with the couple about ethnic stereotypes, the Vancouver Sun reports here.

“I’m sending them a letter and would like to meet and educate them on aboriginal culture,” says Tewanee Joseph, who represents the Lil’wat, Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh bands who are partners with Olympics committee.

”When they come here they will get a real sense of aboriginal culture. “We’re not just Indians with a headdress and feathers.”

Add stalking to the list of Indian Country woes
Indian Country Today, here, calls it “shocking,” and rightly so. U.S. Department of Justice figures show that Native Americans are more victimized by stalkers than any other group. Of perhaps even more concern, when it comes to Indian people, those being stalked frequently are tribal leaders. One expert terms it a hate crime.

Gwen Florio

Tags: "Goin' Native: The American Indian Comedy Slam", 2010 Vancouver Olympics, aboriginal, Alaskan Natives, buffalo post, Commodity Comedy Show, Confedrated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, Drew Lacapa, Ernest David Tsosie III, foster parents, Ice dancing, Maxim Shabalin, Natasha Kaye Johnson, Native American news, Navajo, Oksana Domnina, Stalking, Tatanka Means, U.S. Department of Justice

Looks like aboriginal culture gets ripped off the world over.

Russian ice dancers Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin may have won a second in original dance for their aboriginal-themed performance in Tallinn, Estonia, yesterday, but aboriginal leaders in Australia are outraged.

“We see it as stealing aboriginal culture, and it is yet another example of the aboriginal people of Australia being exploited,”elder Sol Bellear, of the New South Wales state Aboriginal Land Council, tells Reuters, in this story printed in the New York Times.

The Russian pair performs in dark-skin bodysuits with painted white markings and leaves.

The BBC reports, here, that the pair researched the dance and the costumes:

Ms Domnina, 25, and Mr Shabalin, 27, recently told the figure-skating website, Golden Skate, how they researched the dance.

“We’ve watched video clips in the internet of these dances and it is really like this – complete with the leaves around the knees,” Ms Domnina said. …

She told the website that her dog Topi, a Yorkshire Terrier, had been instrumental in selecting the music.

“When we switched on the music for the original dance, my dog started to race around the room like crazy and we understood that maybe this music is what we need. It was really like this, I’m not lying,” she said.

But Bev Manton. chairwoman of the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council. says they’re “ripping off” her culture and that they should rethink their performance before next month’s Vancouver Olympics.

“Our dance, our ceremony, our image – and, importantly, how they are depicted – are sacred to Aboriginal Australians,” says Manton. “Interest must be expressed in a way that is respectful. The ripping off of our art and songs is not, and nor is this depiction of my culture,” she wrote.

Watch the video above (the commentary is in Spanish) and see what you think.

The pair is favored to win gold at the Olympics.

Gwen Florio

Tags: 2010 Vancouver Olympics, aboriginal, buffalo post, Ice dancing, Maxim Shabalin, Native American news, New South Wales state Aboriginal Land Council, Oksana Domnina