Lady Gaga — The Dead Dance (2025)

The Dead Dance is not just a new Lady Gaga single — it’s a major artistic collaboration between the queen of provocation and the king of gothic imagination. The video became a visual continuation of Season 2 of Wednesday, where Gaga not only recorded the soundtrack but also appears as the mysterious Rosaline Rothwood — a character existing on the border between the living and the dead.

It’s a rare case where a music video works simultaneously as:

• a standalone artistic statement
• a piece of the show’s mythology
• a visual ritual

Technical Details

• Premiere: September 3, 2025
• Director: Tim Burton
  Burton’s first music-video work in 13 years — since The Killers’ “Here with Me.”
• Location: Isla de las Muñecas
• Costumes: Colleen Atwood
• Choreography: Parris Goebel

Crucially, the video uses almost no CGI. Its eerie atmosphere is built through real sets, lighting, and movement.

A Location That’s a Nightmare Without VFX

Isla de las Muñecas (The Island of the Dolls) in Xochimilco is considered one of the creepiest real places in the world. Thousands of old, broken, disfigured dolls hung from trees and walls create the sensation of time frozen in place.

In the video:

• the dolls become “witnesses”
• the space feels like a mausoleum of memory
• reality itself seems cursed

This isn’t set dressing — it’s a ready-made gothic world, perfectly aligned with Burton’s aesthetics and the mythology of Wednesday.

Concept: A Nightmare Brought to Life

“The Dead Dance” explores the theme of a nightmare coming alive — the moment when something that should remain still starts moving.

The video opens like a classic black-and-white noir:

• Lady Gaga stands motionless
• as if suspended on a wall
• surrounded by baby dolls

On the first удар of the bass, the image literally comes alive. Color returns, the body begins to move, and the dance becomes an act of awakening.

The Dead Dance is not a dance for life.
It’s a dance after life.

Lady Gaga’s Image: A Living Porcelain Doll

Gaga appears as a living porcelain doll — fragile, cracked, yet dangerous. The image works on multiple levels:

• the doll as a symbol of control
• the doll as an object of the gaze
• the doll as a being that suddenly gains free will

Costumes by Colleen Atwood emphasize:

• artificiality
• cold beauty
• physical vulnerability

It’s an image that perfectly fuses Burton’s aesthetics with Lady Gaga’s stage mythology.

The Dance: A Darker Version of Wednesday

Choreography by Parris Goebel is a key element of the video.
The dance in “The Dead Dance” is a direct reference to Wednesday’s viral dance from Season 1, but:

• more aggressive
• sharper
• almost monstrous

If Wednesday’s dance was ironic and strange, Gaga’s dance is ritualistic and terrifying. It’s not self-expression — it’s the awakening of an ancient creature.

Cast and Ensemble

• Lady Gaga — Rosaline Rothwood / the living porcelain doll
• Masked dancers — a faceless mass creating the effect of an uncanny carnival

The masks strip the dancers of individuality, turning them into a collective subconscious surrounding the heroine.

Connection to the Wednesday Universe

In the video, Gaga is no longer just a pop artist — she becomes part of Nevermore Academy’s mythology. Her character reads as:

• an ancient entity
• a keeper of dark memory
• a reflection of the very idea of “otherness”

This makes “The Dead Dance” not just a music video, but a canonical expansion of the series’ world.

Minatrix.TV Editorial Opinion

“The Dead Dance” is a rare example of a music video becoming part of a larger artistic universe without losing its standalone value.

The Tim Burton × Lady Gaga collaboration feels organic and precise: the gothic is not decorative but alive; the dance is not a show but a ritual; the music is not background but an incantation.

For Minatrix.TV, this is one of the strongest examples of a cinematic concept video in recent years — a piece that exists at the intersection of pop music, cinema, and visual horror.

What do you think: is The Dead Dance прежде всего a Lady Gaga music video, or a полноценная part of the Wednesday universe?
Share your thoughts in the comments — works like this deserve discussion.