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Madonna · S1 E5
Ann Arbor
The dance scholarship to University of Michigan, the artistic world she found, and the limits she hit
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1976. Madonna Ciccone arrives on a full dance scholarship, the first person in her family to attend university and the first to leave Rochester Hills with a plan that does not involve a factory or a church.
"Express Yourself", Madonna, official music video (1989). Directed by David Fincher, choreographed in the Martha Graham tradition she absorbed at Michigan. The Metropolis references, the workers, the movement language: a graduate-level application of what Ann Arbor gave her.
The Scholarship and the Program
The University of Michigan's dance department is one of the strongest in the country. Flynn has coached her specifically to audition here. She wins a full scholarship, and her father's approval is immediate and practical: it costs him nothing.
Ann Arbor, 1976
“I was a very good student. I worked very hard. But I kept thinking, I want to do more than this. I want to sing, I want to perform, I want to be in charge of what I'm doing.”
— Madonna, Rolling Stone, November 1984
What the Program Can't Give Her
The program trains dancers for ensembles and corps work, a career built on serving a choreographer's vision, and Madonna is not built for that. She begins performing in local theater and cabaret-style shows in Ann Arbor. The response to her as a total performer is something the dance department has no framework for.
Express Yourself, Madonna (1989)
"Express Yourself" is a graduate-level application of everything Ann Arbor gave her. The David Fincher video references Fritz Lang's Metropolis, fills the frame with industrial workers, and puts Madonna in complete control of the visual language. The choreography pulls directly from the Martha Graham modern dance tradition she absorbed at the University of Michigan. She is using fine art, film history, and modern dance vocabulary in a pop single, which is exactly what her time at Michigan trained her to do.
Burning Up, Madonna
From Madonna (1983). Her second single, recorded after she arrives in New York. After hearing "Express Yourself" with its polished confidence, go back to this: raw, physical, all forward momentum. The sound of someone who has stopped waiting for permission.
What position did "Express Yourself" peak at on the Billboard Hot 100?
She calls her father from a payphone and tells him she is dropping out. He tells her she is throwing away her future, and she has thirty-five dollars.
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