For the Woman Gaga impersonator Nick Gaga, Sundays get more and more intense towards the top 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 take pleasure in 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 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 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, 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 Purple 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. An important 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 dressing up or stoning. “Stoning” is making use of rhinestones, when 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 are going to vary, and that requires extra preparation. I don’t bodily create the wigs. However I do fashion, shade and lower them.
TUBE DRESS I will 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 sporting 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 might be a head piece, it might be a masks or only a prop onstage.
I make all the pieces 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 setting up, 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 flats. There’s a variety of totally different supplies. The whole lot’s laborious 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’m going straight to rehearsal with my dancers. My present has 4 dancers in the mean time, three boys and one woman.
If we’re assembly at a rehearsal studio, it might be any studio in Midtown, however we like Ripley-Grier on thirty eighth Avenue. 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 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 daily main as much as the present. All of us take it very significantly.
AFTERNOON JOLT Throughout rehearsals, I drink a lot of water. I’m at all times hydrating. And it helps that my eating regimen may be very mild. I like meals and I like to eat, however it’s not as laborious for me to maintain myself in form if I keep hydrated. I additionally pop one other Purple Bull throughout rehearsal.
KEEP THEM GUESSING I modify 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 considered one of her excursions or throughout her residency in Las Vegas. As a result of she’s placing out a brand new album, this can be a nice time for me. I’ve a variety of new materials to work with.
MEAT, NO DRESS If I’m performing drag on a Sunday, which I normally 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 might 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 large, spacious worktable in the course of the room. I work alone, as a result of pals are distracting in terms of creating issues just like the issues I create. And I’m single in the mean time, 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 exhibits. I’m without end 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’m 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 variety of cats, and a few comedy and a variety of Gaga stuff. However the majority of it’s cats. I’m obsessed. I’ve at all times needed one, however I can’t. It’s the approach to life. It’s simply an excessive amount of.
