Mexican Children Channel Madonna!

A few weeks ago, I went to a “concert ensemble” honoring Madonna at a university campus in GDL. I admit that I wasn’t sure what this was about. My best guess was that it would be an outdoor dance party with Madonna music and videos amid some cool lighting. Boy, was I wrong!

The set up was outdoors alright, but judging from the size of the stage, we were in for a real spectacle. It struck me that there was seating for roughly 200 people though the set design had more ambition than that.

The show was indeed a performance-based ensemble of Madonna’s most memorable concert performances starting back with 1989’s Blonde Ambition tour and finishing up with 2006’s Confessions. Much like Madonna’s productions, this show did not lack in props, lighting, a large number of dancers, a live orchestra, a back-up gospel-style choir, video, and all sorts of visual treats.

I assumed all the performers were college students though they all looked like junior high school students to me. I think some of the songs performed might’ve been older than the performers. What’s cool about this is that Madonna’s popularity transcends several generations and it shows. This didn’t feel like a retro-tribute; it definitely felt like it was the “now” thing to do.

So, how was the show? Well, it was pretty good. There were some major flaws in my opinion but first, let’s talk about the good stuff. I was most pleased to see men perform some of the songs, most notably Rain, Live to Tell, and Jump. It was so refreshing to see guys be so open and free with their interpretations. The sheer number of dancers and performers on stage made the concert very engaging though at times, it felt like there were more performers than audience members. By far, the most impressive feature was the flawless choreography. OK, most of it was imitated directly from Madonna’s performances but the stuff is physically demanding and requires a lot of coordination and cooperation – not an easy thing to pull off.

As for the flaws, believe it or not, the Madonnas were the worst part. There were like seven of them who performed different numbers. What was wrong? Just like the real Madonna, most of them couldn’t sing well though the biggest mistake was that these Madonnas weren’t slutty enough. Yeah, you heard me right! These girls were a little too nice. You can’t play Madonna without getting a little nasty! The brilliance behind Madonna’s performances is that you cannot take your eyes off of her. It doesn’t matter what else is going on stage, she commands your attention at all times. The costumes for these Madonnas didn’t stand out enough and the fact that they lacked in stage presence made them pretty forgettable, almost undistinguishable. There were two Madonnas that did get a lot of our attention: One of them was a little sluttier than the rest performing Vogue and the other, unfortunately, was carrying a little extra weight and wore an unflattering white body suit while dancing not very well to la Isla Bonita. That was the closing number.

What I found most strange about the whole thing is that when you get almost one hundred people on stage and most of them look similar – same skin color, same hair color, similar height, and uniform-like costumes – the show loses a lot in its visual appeal. In other words, the troupe was not diverse enough but that’s not the fault of the performers. The stage director should’ve paid more attention to that particular detail. It definitely would’ve helped the show to have the Madonnas wear some blond wigs or to be more inventive with the costuming; in the end, from a certain distance, everyone looked the same. That was a shame because obviously a lot of work went into making this.

I’m not sure what the objective of the school was in doing this as I would wager that they didn’t collect enough revenue from ticket sales to cover the production expenses. The tickets were about USD $15.00. If the goal was to showcase their modern dance program, then this was a brilliant way to present it.

As it’s the norm here in GDL, the audience didn’t feel like dancing, cheering, or screaming and, as expected, I was the loudest person in the whole concert. It was surreal to see such an elaborate upbeat spectacle take place while the audience stay put in their seats only clapping on cue. Will I ever get used to that?