UPDATE 25th May 2010

A little bird informed that the concerts in Magellan Sutera and Tawau have all been cancelled, but that there’s one that’s supposed to be on in Keningau on the 31st of May 2010.

———————————-

It’s one of those concerts where you’d never be sure it’ll ever take place as planned.

Ainur Rokhimah, 31, better known as Inul Daratista, probably Indonesia’s most controversial singer is scheduled to perform 4 concerts in Sabah in the near future:

1) Kota Kinabalu: The Magellan Sutera’s Grand Ballroom, 26th May 2010, 7.30pm
2) Tawau: The Promenade Hotel’s Grand Ballroom, 28th May 2010, 7.30pm
3) Tawau: Indoor Hall, Tawau Sports Complex, 29th May, 7.30pm
4) Tawau: Indoor Hall, Tawau Sports Complex, 30th May, 7.30pm

So those into the “suggestive hyrating hip motions” called Goyang Inul, Ngebor, Gerudi (literally “drilling”) could hope for the best and go see for themselves.

Then she’d be off to Kuala Lumpur at the Grand Lagoon Ballroom, Sunway Resort Hotel & Spa on the 4th of June 2010, 7.30pm. Probably that’s her first concert in 3 years in the peninsula, since her dates in several cities were cancelled at the eleventh hour in 2008 due to “security reasons.”

She’d been featured in no less than TIME and the Wall Street Journal.

Brian Walsh wrote for TIME in March 2003:

Trying to get into an Inul Daratista show is like trying to storm the ramparts of Helm’s Deep: it’s musty, dark, smoky, crowded and the mob seems possessed by a demonic, or at least lascivious, force. … They’re rowdy, they’re eager and, in clear defiance of the laws of physics, all 10,000 of them want in, now, through the soccer stadium’s single narrow entrance. The snarling soldiers posted as security are helpless against this crush of sweating humanity. … Then Inul swaggers on stage, packed in tight red jeans and a glittering crimson tank top. She turns her back to the audience. The guitars crunch, Inul’s hips swing low and hard, and I realize why we labored to breech this gate. … her singing would make Simon Cowell cringe, but she regularly packs concerts and performs on national television. She hasn’t released a single recording, but one critic estimates that some 3 million pirated VCDs of her performances have been sold in Indonesia.

Bret Stephens wrote for the Wall Street Journal in April 2007:

In 1992, a 13-year-old provincial Javanese girl shook her hips to the tune of the 1980s Western chart-topper “The Final Countdown.” Onlookers noticed. The rest, as they say, is history–and a potentially violent culture war in the world’s most populous Muslim state.

She was quoted as a reason why the Indonesian government drafted a national anti-pornography bill in 2003.

Even the godfather of dangdut, Rhoma Irama has criticised her dancing style.

As people say, controversy sells, her popularity is still right up there.

One can only suppose that one could get her to autograph anything, perhaps even on say, personalized basketballs?!

Popularity: 2% [?]

Permalink | playing around, sabud |