Madonna (43 page)

Madonna's younger brother, Christopher Ciccone, served as the production's art director. Together they came up with the concepts behind the sets. Sending sketches back and forth from New York and Los Angeles, they collaborated. “We disagreed on a lot of things, but she trusts me,” he explains. “The audience looks at what she might be sitting on, or rubbing up against, or where her hand might be. The set enhances her.”
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The hairstyle that Madonna sported for the Japanese and most of the American leg of the tour was reminiscent of the one worn by actress Barbara Eden when she starred in the sixties TV show “I Dream of Jeannie.” Her hair was pulled up into a topknot and a hairpiece crown of braids was affixed with bobby pins. From that crown of braids, a two-foot-long blonde switch descended down her back. It took a long time to devise a way of securing the hairpieces to Madonna's head so that the cascading ponytail wouldn't go flying into the first row of the audience when she danced. The exotic nouveau/retro style was created for Madonna by Joanne Gair and Sharon Gault of the Cloutier Agency. It took forty-five minutes each night to put together.

All the elements of the show pivoted around Madonna herself. She had already imposed her musical sensibilities on the world; she had created fashion trends again and again; now she wanted to change the way the world looked at human sexuality. According to choreographer Paterson, “She wanted to make statements about sexuality, cross-sexuality, the church, and the like. But the biggest thing we tried to do is change the shape of concerts.”
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If she was indeed going to spend the summer as the cross-sexual multimedia goddess, then Madonna also wanted to reshape and tone up herself. While in rehearsal for the tour, and during the tour, Madonna employed her longtime physical trainer, Rob Parr, whom she has worked with since February 1987. By the time the tour kicked off in May 1990, she was toned up and in the best physical shape of her entire career.

“This transformation is not an overnight thing,” Parr explained when the tour hit Los Angeles. “Madonna realized how important her health and fitness are to her performances. She knows how she wants to look and she works hard at it. Our workouts are very focused.”
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On tour Parr and Madonna go through a two-and-a-half to three-hour workout that begins with an hour-long running session, followed by a half-hour session on a Lifecycle or a Versaclimber, a mountain-climbing device. Next comes a cool-down of running on stairs. The workout also includes sit-ups for a flat stomach and some pike-position lifts. The last fifteen minutes is spent stretching for muscle tone.

With her show shaping up, and her projects set to be released in a progressive order, the onslaught of Madonna's media blitz began. In March 1990, the single of “Vogue” was released. The week of May 19 it became her eighth Number One single, making her the solo female singer with the most chart-toppers in music history. That same week, the Australian single with “Keep It Together” as the A-side and “Vogue” as the B-side was Number One in that country.

Simultaneously, MTV began playing Madonna's “Vogue” video. Shot in black and white, it co-starred the seven dancers and two female background singers who were going to tour with her that summer. Madonna looks like a cross between Jean Harlow, Lana Turner, and Marilyn Monroe in the incredibly made-up and lit close-up shots. With her troupe, the video proved a glamorous outing before the camera for Madonna.

The following week, on May 22, the
I'm Breathless
album hit the stores, and based in part on the single “Vogue,” sold like hotcakes. On June 15, the stakes heated up even further with the national release of
Dick Tracy
. Suddenly Madonna was everywhere again. Madonna and Warren were not only on the cover of every major entertainment and news magazine, they were also in toy stores—thanks to Breathless and Tracy dolls, stickers, buttons, and comic books.

Amid all this activity and brilliantly marketed cross-pollinating products, the “Blonde Ambition” tour had begun in Tokyo on April 13. While in Japan Madonna played nine sold-out dates in three cities.

Madonna was really proud of this show, and she flew her old dance teacher Christopher Flynn over to Japan so he could see her show in full production. Flynn then returned to Los Angeles, where on April 22 he presided over the second annual AIDS “Dance-A-Thon,” while his star pupil continued her tour.

On the third date at Chiba Marine Stadium, near Tokyo, it poured rain. Officials urged Madonna to cancel the show, but when she got a look at the audience of thirty thousand people—willing to weather the rain to see her show—she decided to carry on as planned. The newspaper
Sports Nippon
called her the “Goddess of the ‘90s.” With her cone-breasted costumes and vogueing dancers, she was a huge hit in Japan.

On May 1, Madonna appeared on a highly publicized episode of the “Arsenio Hall” TV show. In the beginning of the show, instead of Arsenio making the rounds of his studio audience shaking hands and waving, Madonna barreled past him and uncharacteristically wandered through the applauding crowd with an enthusiastic smile on her face. She was there to announce the opening of her North American concert dates and to stir up some controversy.

Dressed in a tailored white suit, she discussed Warren, “Vogue,”
Dick Tracy
, Sandra, and the things she does for “shock value.” Around her neck she wore a thick gold chain, and from it dangled a large $ which ultimately represented what she was destined to cultivate in bushel baskets that summer.

She was relaxed, candid, and, as usual, outspoken. In the song “Vogue,” Madonna sings that Rita Hayworth “gives good face.” When Arsenio asked her the meaning of that phrase, a nonplussed Madonna replied, “Well, it's not exactly like giving good head.”
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He also asked her about the song “Hanky Panky” from the forthcoming
I'm Breathless
album. “It's about a girl who likes a good spanky,” she explained in a titillating fashion.
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According to her, she personally likes to get spanked only so it stings. They also discussed other body parts—especially breasts. Both Arsenio and Madonna expressed their opinions about LaToya Jackson's obvious breast implants. This sparked a conversation about the Jean-Paul Gaultier superhuman cone breasts she wore in the “Vogue” video, and how she has her male dancers wearing them in her concert.

Arsenio couldn't wait to delve into the subject of Madonna's affair with the notorious bachelor Warren Beatty. When he pointed out that Joan Collins once described Beatty as “insatiable,” Madonna let him know that when he was with her, he indeed was “satiable.”

Just to let Hall know that he wasn't the only one on the set who could zing embarrassing questions at one of his guests, Madonna pulled a similar stunt. When Arsenio got too personal with his Warren questions, Madonna asked him how it felt to have Paula Abdul dump him for John Stamos.

Digging deeper into personal controversies, they also bantered back and forth about the same-sex rumors about both of them. When he began pressuring her about Sandra Bernhard, Madonna inquired bluntly about Arsenio's friendship with Eddie Murphy, which erupted into a verbal match that had both of them giggling. Describing her table-turning ploys, Madonna announced at one point, “I knew you were getting in the direction of getting into my shit, so I thought I'd turn it around.”
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It was a provocative interview, and ultimately no real bombshells or revelations were expounded upon, but it was certainly one of the most lively interviews she had given. It was much more interesting than the interview she gave to Kurt Loder of MTV, which was dubbed “Breakfast with Madonna.” Taped early in the morning of April 14 in Tokyo, Loder is too polite an interviewer to be controversial, and toward the end of it Madonna looked as if she wanted to get hold of a pair of toothpicks to prop her eyelids open.

What the general public wasn't aware of at the time was that Madonna was simultaneously concocting the most in-depth look at her life and her celebrityhood ever released. She had employed the services of cinematographer-director Alek Keshishian, who had begun capturing every move Madonna made on this tour, beginning in Tokyo. It would ultimately become the 1991 documentary film
Truth or Dare
.

Meanwhile, on May 4, Madonna kicked off the North American leg of her Blonde Ambition concert tour in Houston. It was the most talked about, most highly praised, and most exotic/erotic concert event of the summer. Its content and concept were exciting from the opening notes of the first number.

Blonde Ambition as a show was provocative in its look, its sound, its “express yourself” message, and its dare-to-be-different themes. The sets, the props, and the star were unlike anything that had come before in a rock and roll arena.

If you were not seated in the audience for one of the Blonde Ambition shows during the summer of 1990, this is how the show unfolded: The eighteen-song, 105-minute concert opens with a mechanical set that simulates the underground world of
Metropolis
, as seen in Madonna's “Express Yourself” video. Huge gears turn and a central staircase slowly rises from the floor of the stage while seven male dancers position themselves like workers in the mechanized fantasy world.

Slowly, from the center of the stage, Madonna rises on a platform that lands her at the top of the staircase, where she begins the “dance and sing” chorus from “Everybody.” Suddenly the percussive music of “Express Yourself” erupts. Madonna is wearing the tailored Gaultier suit that the pair devised. It is tightly molded to her body, with huge slits from the shoulder that expose the pointy cone-breasted costume underneath. Around her neck is a monocle on a chain, and from underneath the front of the jacket, two garter straps dangle downward. She is joined onstage by her two background singers Niki Harris and Donna Delory in similar suits,
sans
breast slits.

When Madonna strips away her jacket, she reveals the armorlike garment that caused the most commotion on this tour, the pointy breasted, one-piece bathing suit outfit (constructed of a satiny material, it is mischaracterized in many descriptions as metal; its shininess only makes it look that way). Doing push-ups over dancer Slam (Sallim Gauwloos), Madonna lets the audience know that she is the liberated strong figure, and that the men are slaves in emotional shackles.

While dancer Oliver Crumes dances in a spangled see-through top on an upper platform, Madonna sings and dances with her
Blue Angel-inspired
chair while singing “Open Your Heart.” For the next number, Madonna is rejoined by the girls and, with a jacket to modify her pointy breasted outfit, they perform “Causing a Commotion.” The crotch-thrusting choreography continues the Madonna-as-dominatrix theme, as she boxes, wrestles, and is victorious over the girls. “What is this shit? I'm the fucking boss around here,” Madonna shouts at the girls when they begin to dance out of step with her moves.
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The number is a tightly choreographed song with a women's wrestling theme. At one point she hurls the girls to the ground and mockingly kicks them in the stomach—reminiscent of the way Bette Davis kicked Joan Crawford around in
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

Dancing her ass off, Madonna swings into “Where's the Party?” utilizing the same stage set, where she is joined by her dancers. While the dancers continue onstage, she rushes backstage for a costume change.

When she returns onstage, her entrance is from underneath the stage. Slowly a set rises up with Madonna on a red velvet bed. On either side of the bed are two male dancers with Egyptian slave caps on their heads and pointy, velvet brassieres on their chests. Madonna likewise is dressed in one of the Gaultier pointy-breast costumes. On this set she performs a Middle Eastern sounding slowed-down version of “Like a Virgin.” Writhing around on the bed, toward the end of the number, Madonna begins stroking her thighs and ends up simulating masturbation.

After humping the bed in a frenetic orgasm, the Catholic guilt aspect comes into play. A backdrop rises to expose a wall of church votive candles, Madonna says the one word, “God?” and suddenly the music for “Like a Prayer” begins. The bed disappears, and suddenly she is in church. In the light of the flickering votive candles, Madonna's dancers change her outfit to a long, black, hooded cloak. With her troupe all clad in black, she dances and sings her way through a stylized revival meeting number.

Left alone on the stage, Madonna spins around while a stained-glass “rose” window depicting a saint with a halo and a confessional kneeling platform descend to the stage. There she performs “Live to Tell” and dances with Carlton Wilborn. Rejoined by four more members of her male dancing troupe, she performs “Papa Don't Preach.”

After that song a curtain drops, and Madonna makes her next stage entrance from below the stage as well. Rising up this time, she is atop a black grand piano, as Breathless Mahoney. Singing “Sooner or Later” while Kevin Kendricks plays keyboards, she has gone from sinner to vamp. For this number she is wearing a slitted black Gaultier jacket, from which her breasts protrude. Underneath the black jacket with a floor-length tail she is wearing a pointy lime-green spangled and striped one-piece bathing suit—shaped creation.

Removing the black jacket, she teases the audience with her naughty, kinky “Hanky Panky.” Rejoined by Donna and Niki, she turns the song into a burlesque number. During the song, Slam, dressed in a yellow Burberry raincoat and yellow fedora, wanders on-stage as Dick Tracy. The girls vamp with him as they finish the number. Amid Madonna's on-stage patter with Slam/Dick, he pulls out a phonograph record, and she hands it to her keyboard player and asks him to play it for her. With that, Madonna and Slam pantomime the Warren Beatty-Madonna duet version of “Now I'm Following You.” This is the biggest section of the show not featuring live vocals, and it is set up in such an obvious way that it is clear that Madonna does not sing live. The other spots where non-live vocals are used were in moments of set transitions and costume changes.