When a dangdut singer in a tight, glittering dress took the stage at the tail end of an Isra’ Mi’raj celebration in Banyuwangi, East Java, earlier this month, the reaction was swift and furious. Video clips showed the performer swaying her hips, accepting tips from male audience members, and turning what had been a religious gathering into something far more ambiguous. As reported by many Indonesian media, organisers hastily apologised, insisting the clerics had already left and the music was meant only to entertain volunteers cleaning up after the prayers. Religious leaders were unconvinced. Some called the performance a desecration of a sacred occasion, others demanded sanctions, and the clip ricocheted across Indonesian social media as fresh proof that faith and fun had once again collided in public view.
The controversy felt familiar because it was. For decades, dangdut has occupied an uncomfortable space in Indonesia’s moral imagination, celebrated as the music of the people and condemned as a vehicle for excess, temptation, and moral decay. Its pounding tabla-derived rhythms, nasal vocals, and Malay–Indian–Arabic musical lineage make it instantly recognisable and wildly popular, especially among working-class audiences. But dangdut is not just something you listen to. It is something you watch. The genre’s power lies as much in bodies as in melodies, and that has made it a persistent target of religious scrutiny.
From its early days, dangdut performances were tied to communal gatherings: weddings, circumcision parties, village anniversaries, political rallies. These were spaces where men and women mixed, flirted, drank, laughed, and danced together, often late into the night. Conservative Islamic leaders have long viewed such settings with suspicion, warning that they encourage maksiat—sinful behaviour—by blurring the boundaries between genders and placing female sexuality on public display. The criticism rarely targets the music alone. It zeroes in on costumes, hip movements, lyrics, and the charged interaction between singer and crowd.
That tension exploded into national consciousness in the early 2000s with the rise of Inul Daratista, a young woman from East Java whose signature goyang ngebor—the “drilling dance”—sent shockwaves through Indonesia’s cultural establishment. Clerics denounced her movements as pornographic, some local governments tried to ban her shows, and senior figures within the dangdut world accused her of degrading the genre. Yet Inul’s popularity only grew. What unsettled her critics was not just her sexiness, but her independence: a village-born woman who became rich, famous, and unapologetic on her own terms. The backlash revealed how moral panic often masks anxieties about class mobility and women’s agency.
Since then, the pattern has repeated itself in smaller but relentless cycles. Local authorities across Java, Sumatra, and Madura periodically impose restrictions on dangdut performances, especially during Ramadan or around religious commemorations. The justifications are usually framed in bureaucratic language about “public order” or “community harmony,” but the pressure often comes from religious councils and hardline groups who threaten protests or direct action. In practice, enforcement is uneven and deeply gendered. Female singers are told to change outfits, tone down their movements, or stop mid-performance, while male organisers and spectators face little scrutiny.
The rise of dangdut koplo, with its faster tempo and more exaggerated dance style, has intensified the unease. Koplo thrives on intimacy: the singer leaning into the crowd, the teasing call-and-response, the ritualised tipping known as saweran. What once unfolded on village stages now circulates endlessly online. Short clips stripped of context rack up millions of views on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, triggering outrage from audiences far removed from the original event. Religious leaders increasingly warn not only against live shows, but against the spread of what they describe as aurat-violating content on smartphones, corrupting youth in private spaces they cannot police.
Yet dangdut performers themselves often resist the caricature imposed on them. Many are devout Muslims who pray, fast, and observe religious obligations. They do not see a contradiction between faith and performance, but rather a constant negotiation. It is common for singers to wear modest clothing during daytime or religious events, switch to more provocative outfits at night, or include Islamic songs and pious greetings in their sets. During Islamic holidays, dangdut stages often feature qasidah-inspired numbers alongside crowd-pleasing hits, a reminder that the genre has always been fluid rather than fixed.
Economics complicate the moral debate. For thousands of women, dangdut is not rebellion but survival. Performing offers one of the few viable ways to earn a living in precarious rural economies. Moral condemnation rarely acknowledges this reality. Instead, women are cast either as victims needing protection or as corrupters of male virtue, while the desires of male spectators are treated as natural, even inevitable. Pleasure becomes a female responsibility and a female crime.
The Banyuwangi incident struck a nerve precisely because it crossed a symbolic line. Dangdut has long existed near religious life—after prayers, outside mosques, alongside celebrations—but placing a visibly sexy performance within the orbit of a sacred commemoration made the boundary feel violated. Similar scandals have erupted elsewhere, from Prophet’s birthday celebrations to mosque fundraisers, each time prompting the same questions about who decides what is appropriate, and when.
Dangdut endures because it answers needs that sermons alone do not: release, joy, flirtation, a sense of shared humanity after long days of work. Religious authorities, for their part, cannot fully suppress it without alienating the communities they seek to guide. The result is an uneasy coexistence marked by condemnation, compromise, and periodic eruptions of outrage.
Each controversy fades, but none resolves the underlying tension. Dangdut shortens skirts, slows hips, adds religious lyrics, then swings back when the pressure eases. Faith scolds, tolerates, and occasionally embraces popular culture, then recoils when it slips out of bounds. In Indonesia, the dance between piety and pleasure is as enduring as the beat of the drum, and for now, neither side seems ready to leave the floor.
Spicy Auntie has seen this movie before, and honestly, I could recite the dialogue in my sleep. Sexy dangdut singer appears. Hips move. Men cheer. Phones come out. Someone yells “haram”. Someone else yells “culture”. Cue apologies, moral outrage, calls for punishment, and a sudden national panic about the collapse of civilisation — all triggered by a woman doing her job on a stage.
What amused me this time is the performance of shock. As if Indonesia woke up yesterday and discovered that dangdut involves bodies. As if villagers have not been dancing, flirting, tipping singers, and enjoying themselves for decades. As if clerics don’t know exactly what happens at weddings, circumcisions, political rallies, or post-prayer celebrations once the loudspeakers are switched from sermons to drums. Please. Auntie was not born last night.
Let’s be clear: this is never really about music. It’s about control. It’s about who gets to decide where joy is allowed to live, whose bodies are permitted to be visible, and who carries the moral burden when men feel desire. Spoiler alert: it’s always the women. The singer’s dress is blamed, not the man who climbed on stage. Her hips are sinful, not the crowd’s hungry eyes. Funny how that works.
What also gets lost in these righteous storms is economics. Most dangdut singers are not provocateurs plotting the downfall of religion. They are working women. They are supporting parents, children, siblings. They travel from village to village, negotiate fees, tolerate harassment, smile through exhaustion, and still get told they are a moral threat. Auntie would like to see how many critics are willing to pay these women a “modesty allowance” so they can retire gracefully into piety.
And the setting? Oh, the sacred outrage about sacred spaces. As if faith is so fragile it dissolves at the sight of a swaying hip. If belief collapses that easily, perhaps the problem is not dangdut but insecurity. Real faith should survive a drumbeat.
What really fascinates Auntie is the selective memory. Dangdut with Islamic lyrics is welcomed. Dangdut that raises funds for mosques is tolerated. Dangdut that entertains political rallies is suddenly “tradition”. But let a woman look too confident, too sensual, too much in control of the gaze, and suddenly we are in emergency mode.
Dangdut will not disappear. It will bend, adapt, resurface, go viral, get banned, and return louder. Because pleasure, like water, finds cracks. And until Indonesia learns to stop policing women’s bodies as a shortcut to moral authority, Spicy Auntie suspects we’ll be dancing this same dance again very soon — outrage, apologies, and all.