Lady Gaga, best known for her outrageous outfits, incredible stage showmanship, and thump-bump dance music, went classical in both dress and vocals when she sang a medley from The Sound of Music at the Oscars this past weekend. It was a huge departure from her other performances, which have included getting vomited on (intentionally), hanging herself from a noose, and smearing blood over her face. There are things we can learn from her performance as we consider our own growth and eventual transformation.
Lady Gaga is incredibly weird and wonderful.
And up until now, I’ve thought that that was her “thing”, her personality, her identity.
As her Oscars 2015 performance showed me, no matter how entrenched it appears any of us is in our lives, or how stuck we might feel, there is always opportunity to break away and reinvent ourselves.
She took a risk
Perhaps one could say that she takes a risk every time she is on stage. I would have a hard time arguing with that.
However, this Oscar performance was such a departure for her that it could be seen as the biggest risk she could have taken with her career. She stepped out and seemed normal, for goodness sake.
Except for that incredible voice.
And she did this on perhaps the largest stage in the world with 36.6 million viewers watching.
She let her inner light shine through
I really appreciate and am awestruck at Lady Gaga’s artistry. There is nothing like one of her performances to make us uncomfortable, make us think, and question our beliefs. Or simply stare as we try to figure out what she’s trying to convey.
Sometimes I wonder though if these performances really mask a perception that she herself is inadequate. Are all the gimmicks, the meat costumes, the shoulder cones simply covers because underneath she thinks Stefani Germanotta isn’t enough?
Regardless, all this was stripped away on Sunday. We saw Lady Gaga-Stefani shining all the more brightly because she wasn’t draped in meat, capped in a four-foot-tall feather headdress, or dressed in drag as Mr. Jo Calderone.
We heard HER this weekend. And we went crazy for it.
Evolution is essential
And I’m not talking about hatching out of an egg, which Lady Gaga did at the 2011 Grammy Awards. To stay fresh and relevant, Lady Gaga must continuously reinvent herself.
So do we. We need to continually evolve if we wish to stay relevant in our businesses, in our careers, with our kids, our spouses. We must continue to grow, adapt, and change.
And if we are to truly become the people we are meant to be, we must be prepared to take a risk. It’s scary to put our true selves out there, especially if our close family and friends see us a different way. It can feel a lot like everyone is looking at us on a stage.
Here’s what we need to remember:
People will go crazy for us, too, when we let our true selves shine through.
I’ve never been a fan of Lady Gaga, but you are spot on Erin. She definitely took a huge risk, on a huge stage, she let put every ounce of her being into that performance, and was flawless. Kudos to her, and good for all of us to stretch outside, sometimes way outside, of our comfort zones. Always something to learn in life!