For the Girl Gaga impersonator Nick Gaga, Sundays get more and more intense towards the tip of the month, when preparations begin ramping up for a brand new installment of Gaga Ball, the drag performer’s signature occasion.
This month’s Gaga Ball occurs Feb. 22 at Balcon Salon in Midtown Manhattan. Including to the same old buildup is the discharge of a brand new Girl Gaga album, “Mayhem,” in March. Nick Gaga, who makes use of he/him pronouns when out of costume and she or he/her pronouns in costume, expects to see throngs of “little monsters” — Girl Gaga’s nickname for her followers — along with the same old crowd. “It lets them get pleasure from a Gaga present whereas they’re ready for one thing new,” he mentioned.
Gaga, 29, lives alone in a loft in Hell’s Kitchen. “It’s principally a mini Girl Gaga museum, with outfits and headpieces and wigs and posters everywhere in the partitions,” the performer mentioned. “I’m obsessed.”
MORNING JOLT As a result of I work in nightlife, Sunday is rarely me waking up at 8 or 9 within the morning. It’s very delayed. I’m making an attempt to have a protracted morning in mattress, particularly in the course of winter, after I wish to keep residence and begin doing prep for the week as a substitute of getting myself trying presentable and able to see the world. I’ll have a Crimson Bull in mattress and attempt to kick off the day by 12.
SEWING, STONING By prep work, I imply preparations for my subsequent exhibits or something I’ve arising within the subsequent few weeks. Crucial prep occurs on the finish of the month, after I’m doing the final checks on any lacking props for Gaga Ball or perhaps ending up stitching a fancy dress or stoning. “Stoning” is making use of rhinestones, in case you’re not acquainted. I’m additionally doing wig prep. Relying on what I’ve deliberate for the present, it is likely to be one wig for the entire present or it is likely to be a number of wigs which can be going to vary, and that requires extra preparation. I don’t bodily create the wigs. However I do type, colour and reduce them.
TUBE DRESS I will be working at residence a number of hours earlier than I go away the house. Earlier within the month, I’m doing analysis that goes very deep. It’s not simply me taking a look at Girl Gaga carrying an outfit and making an attempt to recreate it. I’m discovering out what supplies the unique designer used, the way it was produced. It could possibly be a head piece, it could possibly be a masks or only a prop onstage.
I make the whole lot myself. I needed to discover ways to use a 3D printer and examine some programming to design some stuff and print it. Some outfits require even that. And in terms of establishing, gluing or stitching outfits, it’s not simply material I’m utilizing. Some are made out of tubing, just like the sorts of tubes all of us have beneath our sinks in our flats. There’s a whole lot of totally different supplies. The whole lot’s onerous to make in numerous methods.
JUST DANCE At 4 or 5, I’ve my little lunch break. I’ll seize a Starbucks sandwich or one thing from a deli in Midtown, after which I am going straight to rehearsal with my dancers. My present has 4 dancers for the time being, three boys and one lady.
If we’re assembly at a rehearsal studio, it could possibly be any studio in Midtown, however we like Ripley-Grier on thirty eighth Road. More often than not, although, we select to go straight to our stage at Balcon Salon, as a result of it’s in the course of the day and it’s not open so there’s no clients. Rehearsing on the stage you’re acting on is at all times higher.
The lightest, most minimal rehearsals are two or three hours. Proper earlier than a present, the nearer we get to the precise ball, we lengthen that to 4 to 5 hours. That’s not simply on Sunday — that’s each day main as much as the present. All of us take it very severely.
AFTERNOON JOLT Throughout rehearsals, I drink numerous water. I’m at all times hydrating. And it helps that my food plan could be very mild. I really like meals and I like to eat, but it surely’s not as onerous for me to maintain myself in form if I keep hydrated. I additionally pop one other Crimson Bull throughout rehearsal.
KEEP THEM GUESSING I alter the present each month. Generally it may be very aggressive and extremely full of choreography and dancing and costume adjustments. Among the exhibits I’m straight replicating from Gaga what she was doing onstage on certainly one of her excursions or throughout her residency in Las Vegas. As a result of she’s placing out a brand new album, it is a nice time for me. I’ve a whole lot of new materials to work with.
MEAT, NO DRESS If I’m performing drag on a Sunday, which I often am, both within the West Village or in Hell’s Kitchen, we’ll wrap up rehearsal at 7 or 8 so I can prepare. If I’m not performing, I may need dinner with a buddy. I’m in love with steakhouses. One among my favorites is STK in Midtown. I’ll get a pleasant filet.
SILENT FOCUS After that, I’m working late into the night time in my house, stitching and wig-prepping and creating at my huge, spacious worktable in the course of the room. I work alone, as a result of buddies are distracting in terms of creating issues just like the issues I create. And I’m single for the time being, so even when I didn’t wish to work on my own I’d need to. I additionally work in silence, which I do know is bizarre, or I’ll placed on certainly one of my favourite TV exhibits. I’m without end a fan of “Charmed.” I do know the entire present, so it simply turns into background noise. Nearly all of the time it’s simply me concentrating.
THE LIFESTYLE I am going to mattress round 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. I perform a little unstoppable scrolling on TikTok earlier than then. It’s cats, a whole lot of cats, and a few comedy and a whole lot of Gaga stuff. However the majority of it’s cats. I’m obsessed. I’ve at all times wished one, however I can’t. It’s the life-style. It’s simply an excessive amount of.