Live Performances
Madonna's first live performance of "Express Yourself" was at the 1989 MTV Video Music Awards. She started the performance by descending from a flight of stairs, wearing a pin-striped suit and a monocle. Later she removed the coat to reveal her bustier, and together with her backup singers Niki Haris and Donna De Lory, performed a dance routine called voguing. Ian Inglis, author of Performance and Popular Music: History, Place and Time noted that the historical importance of Madonna's performance at the Video Music Awards was due to the televisual venue. Inglis explained that since Madonna's performance was striking primarily as a high-energy, provocatively choreographed, dance production number, it went on to highlight the 'TV' part of MTV, and in a way heralded her and the network as a cultural arbiter.
Madonna included the song in the set list of her Blond Ambition World Tour in 1990, which featured a version based on the Non-Stop Express remix of the song and included lyrics from "Everybody" during the introduction. The set was inspired by Metropolis and the themes were taken from the factory seen in the music video. It included a number of funnels billowing smoke, steel piping, cables hanging above and a flight of stairs in the middle. As the show started, the set was hurled onstage and Madonna's male dancers, with bare torso, appeared behind the steel structures. They did a choreographed routine on the stage, and towards the end Madonna appeared atop the flight of stairs. She was dressed in a pin-striped suit with holes cut in it, so that her brassiere pocked out of them. Underneath she wore a peach colored corset with a pointed conical bra, designed by Jean Paul Gaultier. She also held a monocle in her hand. Accompanied by her two female dancers dressed in a similar attire, Madonna did a straightforward vocal rendition of the track, and an elaborate choreography, which included voguing, humping, simulated masturbation and momentary storage of the performers' microphone inside their bras. At one point Madonna opened the suit, to reveal the corset with the bra, and tassels hanging from its sides. Two different performances were taped and released on video, the Blond Ambition – Japan Tour 90, taped in Yokohama, Japan, on April 27, 1990, and the Live! – Blond Ambition World Tour 90, taped in Nice, France, on August 5, 1990. It was also one of the performances included in the documentary, Madonna: Truth or Dare (1990).
She also performed a Disco-styled version of the song during The Girlie Show World Tour in 1993. The stage was decked in Mylar curtains and glittering disco balls. The performance began with a distorted voice claiming "I'm gonna take you to a place you've never been before". Afterwards, Madonna descended from the ceiling on a giant disco ball, wearing a blond afro wig, 1970's style halters and royal blue bell-bottom pants. Then her two back-up dancers appeared on the stage and the three women started singing the song together. The end of the performance was connected to the next song, "Deeper and Deeper". According to Guilbert, Madonna was inspired by actress Marlene Dietrich in the 1932 film Blonde Venus for the performance. It was included on The Girlie Show – Live Down Under home video release, recorded on November 19, 1993, at Sydney, Australia. "Express Yourself" was included in the military segment of the Re-Invention World Tour in 2004, with the opening line altered to "Come on boys!". She and her dancers were dressed in military gear and performed a rifle choreography, with Madonna acting as a sergeant. As Drew Sterwald from News Press noted, the song in its military version was talking about both personal love, as well as patriotic love. Jon Pareles of The New York Times commented that the song was contravened as cynical, when Madonna sang the line, "What you need is a big, strong hand/To lift you to your higher ground", and raised a rifle above her head. Author Dirk Timmerman pointed out that "in the context of the show, with performances like 'American Life' and 'Imagine', it added to the anti-war message of the tour." In 2008, during the Sticky & Sweet Tour, she performed "Express Yourself" as the request song in some of her shows, including at Madison Square Garden in New York. In 2012, she performed an excerpt of the song at the Super Bowl XLVI Halftime Show with Cee Lo Green and a large marching band. The same year, "Express Yourself" was performed on the MDNA Tour. It incorporates excerpts from Lady Gaga's song "Born This Way" and Madonna's own song "She's Not Me" from Hard Candy (2008). As the chord progression and melody of "Born This Way" was heavily compared to "Express Yourself"'s in its release, many speculated that Madonna was "dissing" Gaga and her song.
Read more about this topic: Express Yourself (Madonna Song)
Famous quotes containing the words live and/or performances:
“Those who live near the temple make fun of the gods.”
—Chinese proverb.
“At one of the later performances you asked why they called it a “miracle,”
Since nothing ever happened. That, of course, was the miracle
But you wanted to know why so much action took on so much life
And still managed to remain itself, aloof, smiling and courteous.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)