Going Gaga for Lady Gaga

It is rare in our current cultural lifestyle that an artist can bring pop performance art, fashion, and vibrant dancing simultaneously to any stage performance. Enter Lady Gaga. She is the new breakout superstar on the American Pop Charts, one that our culture has been starving for since the days of Freddy Mercury or David Bowie. She oozes with an ornate originality as she writes her own music and incorporates art with her fashion and her dancing. Performance is an understatement when used to describe Lady Gaga. A more appropriate term would be to call it an art piece of theatrical extravaganza. In September 2009, Lady Gaga created her most famous-to-date piece of theatrical artwork for the MTV Awards show. I feel that the English dictionary limits my ability to describe the work, allowing me only to describe it as an emotional, intriguing, and dynamic storytelling and performance.

The artwork begins in darkness with a loud crashing sound accompanied by the sound of glass breaking. This is accompanied by a high shrilling female scream. The lights are raised, displaying a large stage with curtains. The red velvet curtains are lifted on the stage, revealing an elaborate set that is designed to be the interior foyer of a mansion with a large staircase and stain glassed windows. The spotlight is set on the center of the stage, illuminating a body on the ground next to an oversized chandelier. The orchestra begins playing the light-tempo violin music as the camera slowly enters the scene and begins moving closer to the body. The following lyrics are heard through the speakers:

"Amidst all of these flashing lights, I pray that fame won't take my life."

The artist has made a bold choice with opening the performance by intimately revealing to the audience the nature of this piece of art and revealing to them her personal fear.

The camera zooms in on the body, revealing that the body on the floor is Lady Gaga. The electro-synth musical interlude to her song "Paparazzi" begins as she rolls over on the floor, her face hidden behind a beaded mask with feather horns, being aided to her feet by male dancers. She is dressed in white knee-high boots, a white belly-baring unitard with a single feathered shoulder pad. As she begins singing, dancers can be seen moving in multiple directions on the stage. There is a theme of sexual ambiguity among the dancers as all of the dancers are dressed in a variation of white unitard costumes. In fact, only the long hair of the females and the short hair of the men are visible as differences of the sexes.

Lady Gaga not only sings the lyrics but she is also a contributor to the physical movement pieces with the dancers. Several dancers pirouette around her while a core set of dancers and Lady Gaga move in unison for an 8-count of choreographed dancing before returning to a separate set of choreography, separating singer from dancer. Several dancers travel up and down the staircase on stage, moving in a circular motion with quick movements. The singing becomes slightly elevated as do the movement of the dancers. Ballet pique turns, jazz pirouettes, and leaps across the stage can all be seen in the mishmash movements of the dancers as the speed of the song increases. Lady Gaga's movements can be described as robotic; her angles are sharp and movements are strikingly coordinated and strong while lacking fluidity, which can be assumed to be out of pure intention. The sharp, mechanized movements make the lyrical aspects even more poignant as she says "I'm your biggest fan, I'll follow you until you love me". The impression that the lyrics mixed with the dancing leaves on you is the feeling that the artist is claiming she will do whatever it takes to have people love her, even if it means being robotic and losing herself.

The dance movements are slowly becoming more erratic, quicker, with a hint of fear. Gaga uses small facial motions such as opening her eyes as wide as possible and tilting her head to show the change in her demeanor. Dancers can be seen on the floor, moving on their knees while others are making rapid arm movements that show desperation, as if trying to pull something or someone closer to them or grasping at them to keep them from moving in the other direction.

A dancer is brought out in a wheelchair, being pushed by another dancer. This has an immediate impact because it shows that dancing is not limited to those with full physical capabilities. The wheelchair dancer is pushed across the stage while flailing her arms and moving her torso in a multi-directional formation. Lady Gaga follows behind, staggering as she uses a cane to help her move across the stage. This heightens the activity on stage as if to show she has possibly been injured as a result of her quest for fame or as an expressional way to claim that even a handicap can't keep her from chasing her dreams.

Lady Gaga staggers over to a white grand piano that has been pushed on to the edge of the stage. She places her left foot on one end of the piano keys which makes a startling noise and begins playing the other end of the keys fitfully. She continues to play for 3 8-counts while banging her head listlessly in the air. The dancers have frozen on stage while she plays, moving their head in systematically steady movements looking in different directions.

Once again, she staggers back across the stage. Her face shows desperation and pleading as she raises her hands toward the audience while singing. Her eyes are no longer wide but have grown smaller, almost as if ready to form tears. Suddenly, while in mid lyric, blood begins dripping from her ribcage. Her face makes a shrieking motion as she squints her facial muscles, looking down at her bleeding chest in panic. She pats the blood with her hand, showing it to her audience. It is followed with her dabbing at the blood again and wiping it on her face. The dancers unfreeze from their position while leaping, running and jumping out to meet Gaga in the center of the stage and surround her. While in mid lyric, she throws her head back in agony and collapses into the arms of a male dancer as he lifts her up into the air as if to sacrifice her body while he cries at her dismay. All the while Gaga is still singing, using her body to hide her head and microphone. The male dancer lays her down center stage as the dancers run to her aid, flailing their arms, moving in theatrical motions as they have done so for the full performance. The lights on the stage turn to a dark shade of red as one single male dancer moves to the music for an 8-count while the remaining dancers kneel and stand around the body of Gaga. The dancers begin to lift their head as Gaga can be seen being raised up from the floor. The dancers sway their torso in a quick and unpredictable up and down motion. Gaga is lifted up into the air, holding on to a rope with one hand, being hung unresponsively with the other hand rising above her dancers and blood smeared on her face. The dancers freeze in their respective positions with their faces looking down as the lights flicker on and off to represent flashbulbs. Lady Gaga stares lifelessly at the stunned crowd with blood coming out of her eyes and chest; a golden halo is projected on the screen behind her.

When I first saw this performance, I was shocked. I wasn't sure what I was watching. I felt as if the artist was simply trying to shock the audience by incorporating taboo topics such as handicap, religion, and death into her performance. It wasn't until I watched it several more times that I was able to get past my preconceived notions and see that this was a performance art piece unlike I've seen before; one worthy of dedicating my time to analyze.

The artist uses her stage to tell a story. In this piece, she is portraying scenarios that a person goes through in order to gain fame. As I had assumed, the artist does use her space to talk about a taboo topic. However, it's one that needs to be discussed as a many of the youths of our culture are skewed by the idea of fame and don't have a full understanding of the repercussions that can occur from the quest of gaining fame. Lady Gaga doesn't immortalize or sensationalize fame but takes a bold stance to show another side, a riskier and darker side.

The white costume that she uses creates an angelic effect for the dancers. The choreography starts off fluid, with movements flowing from their arms to legs, spinning and leaping across stage. As the song and the energy progress, the movements become coordinated, controlled, mechanical, and robotic, almost as if someone else was now controlling them, forcing them to make these movements. The choreography has a great range of incorporating ballet, jazz and hip hop movements while also using small but poignant movements such as simple but sharp movements of the head or the shape and contour of the eyes. The sexual ambiguity of the dancers removes the male or female sympathy factor and establishes them simply as "dancers". She allows the movements to be represented by the dancer instead of the sex. This is another bold movement to break down barriers against limiting dancers to their respective roles; males being masculine and females being feminine. This also allows for another important aspect of Lady Gaga's art to shine through - allowing the art to remain subjective. Lady Gaga tells a story through her music, dance, and fashion but still allows for enough room for the audience to interpret the meaning, allowing her art to remain subjective. This is an important aspect for dance as it should not be so controlled to tell you how to feel, it should only guide you in the direction that the artist chooses.

I have a newfound respect for Lady Gaga after critiquing this art piece. She is a bold new artist that I hope to see continue to use her talent as a means of political expression. I can now say that I am "gaga for Gaga".