Laurieann Gibson Explains Nicki Minaj’s Grammy Performance: I’m Catholic!

Lady Gaga’s ex Creative Director attempts to explain away Nicki Minaj’s universally panned Grammy performance this past week. She needs more people…

Rolling Stone writes: Minaj performed the new track “Roman Holiday” as her nihilistic alter-ego Roman Zolanski, executing the first-ever mock exorcism on the Grammy stage.

Critics were quick to pan the performance for its over-the-top religious overtones and similarities to other church-baiting performances in the name of pop music, among them Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” and Lady Gaga’s “Judas” video, which Gibson co-directed.

The Catholic League blasted Minaj’s performance on their website for its “vulgar” choreography, taking special exception to “a scantily clad female dancer stretching backwards while an altar boy knelt between her legs in prayer.”

“To be honest, no, we didn’t do anything for controversy,” Gibson claims.“We never had that conversation at all. Nicki just truly wanted Roman to be exorcised, and I just went to work.”

For her part, Gibson was tasked with marrying Minaj’s idea of the exorcism and the Hype Williams-directed video that accompanied the performance. Titled ‘The Exorcism of Roman,’ the video borrowed imagery from the 1973 classic The Exorcist and more recent horror flicks like The Devil Inside. A self-described “believer” and Catholic, Gibson says she never watched The Exorcist as a child because it “scared the boots” off her.

To adapt Minaj’s ideas for the stage, she looked to the House of Borghese and the Vatican for inspiration.

“I love the inspiration of those colors and that architectural world,” Gibson says. “I personally chose to stay away from any religious moves. There were no crosses. There were no religious symbols. We made sure we were very respectable. The bishop was a symbolic figurehead. He was not [intended] in a negative light, but in a position of authority.”

Gibson assumes the reason Minaj’s performance drew so much attention is simply because Catholic imagery alongside pop music just does. “You don’t get press on the other stuff,” she says. “As far as the theatrical and dramatic performance, it’s entertainment. If you are going to rise up about a performance that is not literal or harming from two people that are believers, then we need to see that anger being used to make a change.”

This isn’t the first time Gibson has been attacked by the Catholic League for her choreography. It happened with her work on Lady Gaga’s “Judas” video. On YouTube the video, which begins with Gaga riding with a biker gang made up of Jesus’ apostles, has more than 127 million hits.

“I loved the idea of Jesus being on a motorcycle bringing them from Damascus to face a situation that might not be so favorable,” Gibson says. She doesn’t see similarities between the Gaga video and Minaj’s Grammy performance.

“They are two completely different stories. As far as what I do and the execution of it, that’s great that it is at that level where people recognize the similarities and how I execute for an artist. But ‘Judas’ was a completely different experience. Nicki is extremely unique – it’s a different genre of music. What people are feeling is the similarity in what I do and how I’m capable of breaking a new artist into a competitive field.

“People can’t wrap their head around the fact that Gaga did not do that on her own. She didn’t. There was a Laurieann Gibson. There was someone to execute at a high level in a short period of time. There are a lot of great artists, and the fact that we did that in such a short period of time was a huge blessing.”

Before choreographing the grand entrances and videos for “Just Dance,” “Poker Face,” “Paparazzi” and a huge chunk of Gaga’s work prior to 2011′s “You and I,” Gibson was a Fly Girl on In Living Color in the Nineties.

Asked if she feels she is molding the pop stars she works with, Gibson says,“Molding them from a place of love and wanting to see their dreams come true. With Lady Gaga I really stretched myself as a creative director, and because I was with this artist from before she got signed I was able to really take control of the opportunity and execute as a creative director.”The two stopped working together in 2011 after Gibson’s work on Gaga’s “You and I” video, ending their professional relationship due to “creative differences.”

“Gaga had simply gotten to the point where she wanted to be her own creative director,” she says. “Instead of fighting, I had to say, ‘Go ahead. It’s all good. We got here. Thank you,’”Gibson says.

Source: Rolling Stone