This decade has been an absolute burning building so far, and it’s still quite early in the game. We are in dire need of another civil rights movement, another queer liberation movement, another feminist movement, another way to live together, another planet even (if you haven’t noticed that this one is in the early rumblings of a full-blown death rattle).
But what if for one night we could look ahead at a glimpse of the world we’re working toward? One where all our pain and malice have succumbed to a culture of transformation, radical joy and queer-futurism. That is the call issued by Beyonce’s massive 2023 RENAISSANCE World Tour.
Texas’ own Mrs. Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter took over AT&T Stadium Thursday night to kick off the penultimate week of one of this year’s most highly anticipated concert tours. She eased us gently into her new vision for the world with an elegant first act of powerhouse ballads, lounging atop a chrome grand piano as she dripped with beading, pale mint feathers trailing behind her heels. Highlights included a mesmerizing take on Rose Royce’s “I’m Going Down” (the 1976 Carwash soundtrack cut that Mary J. Blige popularized for Gen-X) and an angelic take on “River Deep, Mountain High” in tribute to Tina Turner that left the whole arena breathless.
Once the crowd was warmed up, she took us through the looking glass. At the center of the stage, a nucleus swirling with silver light began to form a portal to the other side. Beyoncé as Sorayama’s shining gynoid-fembot goddess appeared and beckoned lovingly toward the emerging glow beyond her, the entrance to Planet RENAISSANCE. Suddenly this souring rock beneath our feet became a spinning mirror ball, illuminated by pure love. It is Venus rising from the sea on the sparkling chrome half-shell. It is an Afro-futuristic queer utopia flying through the galaxy at the speed of light. It is a transcendental realm we never knew within us, where we’re allowed to exist without apology or compromise for the most beautiful parts of ourselves.
The set design and visuals for Beyoncé's show were futuristic, relatable and stunning all at once.
Tina O’Keefe
Interpolations of classic records and fan favorites from her vast back catalog twinkled through video interludes, and dynamic segue arrangements flowed seamlessly with this newer material. Choices like integrating “Dance For You” and “Rocket” with “VIRGO GROOVE” and swapping the intro for “ALIEN SUPERSTAR” with the sizzling synths of “Sweet Dreams” allowed her to give the people what they want without straying too far from the overall world-building that went into this marvel of a production. Dallas did, however, get treated to a healthy dose of 2011’s 4 — the first of many “visual albums” Beyoncé has debuted outright with a companion film narrative for every track.
A runtime of three hours made the 1.5-hour delayed start well worth it. On the RENAISSANCE World Tour, Beyoncé has delivered production values beyond our wildest dreams, including (but hardly limited to) the mind-blowing element of costuming herself AND her dancers with arguably the year’s most revered achievement in fashion design: the geometric silhouettes of Japanese brand Anrealage by Kunihiko Morinaga, made from UV-activated color-changing fibers that lit up Paris Fashion Week and the internet this spring. The magnitude of being in the same room as such iconic custom couture was by no means lost on such a stylishly outfitted audience.
As we approach the end of Beyoncé’s RENAISSANCE era, we must remember to keep going back there in our hearts and minds — to keep cultivating the eternal nightclub within us, that place where we’re allowed to be our truest selves — until the world around us feels more like it.
