Paintball-gun-toting guards in combat fatigues barge onstage, clearing the way for the first performance of Moscow’s latest
showbusiness sensation, Nato, the female singer whose face and hair are always concealed by an Islamic headscarf and veil.
Finally, the young woman arrives, protected by the guards, who shoot paintball cartridges when the audience tries to get to close
to the enigmatic performer.
While Nato’s face and hair are shielded from prying eyes, her modesty apparently does not go so far as preventing her from
displaying a respectable cleavage, as she sings Uzbek and Georgian traditionals to an electronic music background.
But the real reason why she is attracting so much media attention is that she is the latest ”project” of Ivan Shapovalov,
the scandal-courting producer who already engineered the worldwide success of techno-lesbian duo Tatu.
The media-buzz started last September, when Nato was to have made her debut at a concert-cum-mock terrorist attack.
But with the deadly Beslan hostage taking still fresh in the minds of traumatized Moscovites, the gig was eventually cancelled.
This month’s performance did attract a few spectators, but with countless cameras surrounding the stage, they could hardly get a
glimpse of the new hottest show in town.
”This concert is just a show for the media,” said a dispappointed Ruslan, a 27-year-old web-designer who first heard of
Nato on the radio.
”The veil and headscarf look good on TV, but it worries audiences, who are afraid they will end up listening to the music
lying down with their hands on their heads,” as in a real hostage taking, he added.
”I hope next time she will sing standing on a tank and that there will be a real audience,” Ruslan said.
However, 25-year-old Natalya was much more upbeat about Nato’s performance. ”These are novel sensations ! I understand how people
can be afraid, but (Nato) is fighting terrorism with art,” she said. Between Nato’s songs, CNN news clips on terrorist attacks in
Iraq are broadcast on TV screens.
The show even attracted politicians, like prominent ultranationalist deputy Alexei Mitrofanov, who belongs to Vladimir
Zhirinovsky’s LDPR party.
”Maybe the Russians will understand that not all Muslims are terrorists. I prefer this musical jihad to the real one, where
buses are blown up,” Mitrofanov says.
In fact, the show’s organizers say, Nato is not a Muslim, she has Georgian roots and lives in Moscow, and, they swear, her stage
name has nothing to do with NATO, the western military alliance.
As for her mentor, Shapovalov, he clearly relishes playing with the media, as he dodges questions, or answers them with questions
of his own.
On the eve of Nato’s debut, he had himself interviewed in a hotel room, lying on a bed and pretending to shoot at the wall with
a toy submachine gun.
Is Nato ”provocation ? I do not know … But it turns me on to see all of you here,” he guffawed. — Sapa-AFP