For the Woman 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 standard buildup is the discharge of a brand new Woman 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” — Woman Gaga’s nickname for her followers — along with the standard 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 mainly a mini Woman Gaga museum, with outfits and headpieces and wigs and posters all around the partitions,” the performer mentioned. “I’m obsessed.”
MORNING JOLT As a result of I work in nightlife, Sunday isn’t me waking up at 8 or 9 within the morning. It’s very delayed. I’m attempting to have a protracted morning in mattress, particularly in the course of winter, once I need to keep dwelling and begin doing prep for the week as an alternative of getting myself wanting 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 reveals or something I’ve developing within the subsequent few weeks. A very powerful prep occurs on the finish of the month, once I’m doing the final checks on any lacking props for Gaga Ball or possibly 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 perhaps one wig for the entire present or it is perhaps 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, coloration and lower them.
TUBE DRESS I may be working at dwelling a number of hours earlier than I depart the condominium. Earlier within the month, I’m doing analysis that goes very deep. It’s not simply me taking a look at Woman Gaga carrying an outfit and attempting to recreate it. I’m discovering out what supplies the unique designer used, the way it was produced. It might be a head piece, it might be a masks or only a prop onstage.
I make the whole lot myself. I needed to learn to use a 3D printer and research some programming to design some stuff and print it. Some outfits require even that. And in the case of developing, 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 below our sinks in our residences. There’s lots of totally different supplies. Every part’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 in the meanwhile, three boys and one lady.
If we’re assembly at a rehearsal studio, it might 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 throughout the day and it’s not open so there’s no prospects. Rehearsing on the stage you’re acting on is all the time 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 prolong that to 4 to 5 hours. That’s not simply on Sunday — that’s day by day main as much as the present. All of us take it very severely.
AFTERNOON JOLT Throughout rehearsals, I drink numerous water. I’m all the time hydrating. And it helps that my weight loss program could be very mild. I really like meals and I like to eat, nevertheless it’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 modify the present each month. Typically it may be very aggressive and extremely filled with choreography and dancing and costume modifications. A few of the reveals I’m instantly replicating from Gaga what she was doing onstage on considered 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 lots 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 pal. I’m in love with steakhouses. One in every of my favorites is STK in Midtown. I’ll get a pleasant filet.
SILENT FOCUS After that, I’m working late into the evening in my condominium, stitching and wig-prepping and creating at my huge, spacious worktable in the course of the room. I work alone, as a result of mates are distracting in the case of creating issues just like the issues I create. And I’m single in the meanwhile, so even when I didn’t need to work on my own I’d should. I additionally work in silence, which I do know is bizarre, or I’ll placed on considered one of my favourite TV reveals. I’m eternally a fan of “Charmed.” I do know the entire present, so it simply turns into background noise. The vast majority of the time it’s simply me concentrating.
THE LIFESTYLE I am going to mattress round 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. I do some unstoppable scrolling on TikTok earlier than then. It’s cats, lots of cats, and a few comedy and lots of Gaga stuff. However the majority of it’s cats. I’m obsessed. I’ve all the time needed one, however I can’t. It’s the approach to life. It’s simply an excessive amount of.
