Goyang Penasaran (The Obsessive Twist) the stage performance was adapted from Intan Paramaditha’s short story and directed by Naomi Srikandi. The first staging was performed at Teater Garasi, Yogyakarta, December 14-16, 2011 with the support of Kelola Foundation’s Empowering Women Artists.
Goyang Penasaran (The Obsessive Twist) is a play about Salimah, a female dangdut* singer from a small town, who has been admired, immortalized, and shunned by men. Set in the late 1990s, at the beginning of the Islamic resurgence in Indonesia, the story revolves around Salimah and her undying love for her old time religious teacher who now condemns her, and Solihin, who would do anything to have her after she humiliates him by refusing his proposal to take her as a second wife.
Exploring the possibilities in which the spectators could critically challenge their gaze on the condemned and eroticized body of a dangdut singer, the staging of the play experiments with an old tradition in theater: the cross-dressing practice. The performance deploys four male actors to play Solihin, Haji Ahmad the religious teacher, the thugs, and Salimah herself. Stylistically, it is a low-brow Indonesian realism sandiwara, and a homage to classic Indonesian horror films and the heyday of dangdut music from the 1970s-1980s.
*Dangdut is a genre of Indonesian popular music that combines Malay, Arabic, Indian, Western, and Latin musical elements. Throughout the history it has been associated with the underclass, commodified, and politicized. In the past decade erotic dangdut dance has been part of the debates of national morality and religion.
The collaborating artists who created the first staging of Goyang Penasaran (The Obsessive Twist) are (alphabetically): Agung Kurniawan (art director), Ari Dwianto (actor), Ignatius Sugiarto (lighting designer, technical director), Intan Paramaditha (author of original story, co-playwright), Irfanuddien Ghozali (actor), Muhammad Nur Qomaruddin (actor), Naomi Srikandi (director, co-playwright), Rifqy Mansur Maya (stage manager), Risky Summerbee (soundscape and music director), Theodorus Christanto (actor, assistant director), Vidyahana Sinaga (costume and make up artist).
learn more about goyangpenasaran.teatergarasi.org
Goyang Penasaran (The Obsessive Twist) © Teater Garasi 2011
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