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In the past, Madonna\u2019s tours have been news-making events tied as much to her latest music as to her cycle of stylistic reinventions. But Celebration is essentially the pop superstar\u2019s Eras Tour<\/a>, as Taylor Swift has styled her latest outing: a staged romp through decades of hit songs and signature looks, giving fans a chance to relive her career as a stages-of-life experience. (Seventeen of Madonna\u2019s previous costumes were recreated for the tour, and some of the merchandise for sale includes replicas from past treks.)<\/p>\n With her Virgin Tour in 1985, Madonna introduced herself as a punk-glam dance star whose every crucifix pendant or flap of denim was zealously adopted by fans. Who\u2019s That Girl (1987) and Blond Ambition (1990) grew increasingly elaborate as Madonna pushed the fashion envelope with looks like Jean Paul Gaultier\u2019s memorable cone bra<\/a> and set the bar for bold, imaginative pop megatours. The Girlie Show (1993), in which Madonna appeared as a dominatrix, was the accompaniment to a period of daringly explicit material like her \u201cSex\u201d book and \u201cJustify My Love\u201d video, which was banned from MTV.<\/p>\n After an eight-year absence from the road, Drowned World (2001) reintroduced Madonna as a new mother, an electro-pop heroine and an acolyte of kabbalah, a form of Jewish mysticism. In more recent years, her Confessions Tour (2006) cast her in late-70s disco style, and Rebel Heart (2015-16) found her playing guitar, in addition to executing the complex choreography for which she is known. Her most recent tour, Madame X, which was cut short by the Covid-19 pandemic, saw Madonna looking to reinvent her stage performance once again in a more intimate, almost cabaret form, mostly eschewing arenas for spaces like the Brooklyn Academy of Music.<\/p>\n For Madonna, the 78-date Celebration Tour is a chance to assert her star power in a year when live music has been dominated by Swift and Beyonc\u00e9 \u2014 women who, like Madonna before them, have used talent and deep media savvy to remake pop stardom in their own image. In July, Beyonc\u00e9 acknowledged the debt, when Madonna, making one of her first public appearances after her hospitalization, attended Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s Renaissance World Tour<\/a> in New Jersey. \u201cBig shout-out to the queen,\u201d Beyonc\u00e9 called out<\/a> during a performance of the \u201cQueens Remix\u201d of her song \u201cBreak My Soul,\u201d which blends in Madonna\u2019s 1990 smash \u201cVogue\u201d \u2014 another hit that mined, and honored, gay dance culture of that period.<\/p>\n Madonna returned the acknowledgment on Saturday, playing a bit of the same remix during an interstitial moment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n