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'Kangaroo Time' wins the annual Dance Your PhD contest in Australia
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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Some very serious people got a chance to express themselves in Australia.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "KANGAROO TIME")
WELITON MENARIO COSTA: (Singing) Kanga, kangaroo, kanga, kangaroo...
INSKEEP: We're dancing here in the studios.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
"Kangaroo Time" was this year's overall winner of the annual Dance Your PhD contest. Scientists from around the world relay their research through interpretive dance.
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(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "KANGAROO TIME")
COSTA: (Singing) Hope you don't mind, some things I learned from my kanga-time (ph)...
INSKEEP: The winner was Weliton Menario Costa, who wrote and sang this song when he was a PhD candidate at Australian National University.
COSTA: My PhD was on kangaroo behavior. So kangaroos do have personality. It means they do have this intrinsic tendencies of behaving in a particular way and that is different from the other.
MARTIN: The different behaviors Costa observed are expressed through samba, ballet, Brazilian capoeira, salsa and, of course, twerking.
INSKEEP: OK.
MARTIN: Some kangaroos seem to change their personalities to fit in.
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COSTA: When they move across different groups, and kangaroos do that a lot, as they do so, they do adjust their behavior to the behavior of other individuals in the group.
INSKEEP: Costa expressed that with an elaborately produced video. Sometimes you see kangaroos on a grassy plain, and sometimes you see the scientist on that plane dancing with other people who are dressed in different ways.
COSTA: I'm also a part of the queer community, and having drag queens was a very important aspect that I wanted to bring. Basically anyone seeing that video will see diversity, and that's how you should see any workspace.
MARTIN: And Costa loves music so much that he's actually left academia to be a musician full time.
INSKEEP: I'm just trying to think about different dances we could try, Michel, to express different news stories.
MARTIN: It would have flow.
INSKEEP: Square dancing? We'll flow.
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MARTIN: Flow.
INSKEEP: We'll just kind of flow.
MARTIN: We'll just interpret.
INSKEEP: We'll just keep going.
MARTIN: We just keep going.
INSKEEP: Keep going. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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