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Russian Investigators Clear Teen Twerkers of Indecency Claims

Members of the Kredo dance school in Orenburg twerk in a “dance of the bees.”

Investigators have found no signs of indecent activity in a video of teenage girls "twerking" during a dance school performance and will not open a criminal case into the matter, a news report said Monday.

The video, which has garnered more than 25 million views since it was uploaded to YouTube last month, was shot in the town of Orenburg and saw the young dancers, who were dressed as bees, flock onstage and start twerking in a modern take on a "Winnie the Pooh" tale.

Many social media users and Internet news sites were quick to criticize the performance as "indecent," while children's rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov labeled it "vulgar" and "insulting" in a Twitter post.

But a formal investigation concluded that there was nothing untoward about the performance, according to Anzhelika Linkova, an Investigative Committee assistant in the Orenburg region.

"A criminal case will not be opened against the dance school as specialists have not found anything depraved in the actions of the school's management regarding the minors, [neither have they found any evidence of] negligence or the illegal manufacture of pornographic materials depicting minors," Linkova was cited as saying by RIA Novosti.

Most of the girls performing in the show were aged between 16 and 18 or older, RIA Novosti said. While three 14-year-old girls and two 15-year-olds also took part, their parents had consented to them learning the "twerk" dance style, the report added.

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