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 standard 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 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 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 isn’t 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 need to keep house 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 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 developing within the subsequent few weeks. A very powerful prep occurs on the finish of the month, after 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, for those who’re not acquainted. I’m additionally doing wig prep. Relying on what I’ve deliberate for the present, it could be one wig for the entire present or it could be a number of wigs which might be going to alter, and that requires extra preparation. I don’t bodily create the wigs. However I do fashion, colour and minimize them.
TUBE DRESS I could be working at house a number of hours earlier than I go away the condominium. Earlier within the month, I’m doing analysis that goes very deep. It’s not simply me 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 might be a head piece, it might be a masks or only a prop onstage.
I make all the things 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 relating to setting up, gluing or stitching outfits, it’s not simply cloth 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 quite a lot of totally different supplies. Every little thing’s exhausting 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 for the time being, 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 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 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 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 critically.
AFTERNOON JOLT Throughout rehearsals, I drink numerous water. I’m all the time hydrating. And it helps that my weight loss plan may be very gentle. I like meals and I like to eat, but it surely’s not as exhausting 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 filled with choreography and dancing and costume modifications. Among the exhibits I’m straight replicating from Gaga what she was doing onstage on one among 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 quite a 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 good friend. 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 night time in my condominium, stitching and wig-prepping and creating at my massive, spacious worktable in the course of the room. I work alone, as a result of mates are distracting relating to creating issues just like the issues I create. And I’m single for the time being, 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 one among my favourite TV exhibits. I’m eternally 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’m going to mattress round 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. I do some unstoppable scrolling on TikTok earlier than then. It’s cats, quite a lot of cats, and a few comedy and quite a lot 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 life-style. It’s simply an excessive amount of.
