If you’ve ever seen Katy Perry perform live, you may have noticed that girl changes clothes like that dude in “Hot N Cold” changes his mind. The secret behind her lightning-fast dressing up and dressing down? That would be David Michael Maas and Dania Kaseeva, a duo of quick-change artists who grew up in the circus and, seriously, are more than a little magical.
“Her management saw us and asked if we would be interested in setting up a meeting with Katy to talk about the possibility of doing some changes in her show,” Maas told MTV News. “She had in mind to do all those changes in one particular song, which was ‘Hot N Cold.’ She fell in love with the whole idea and ended up doing a whole bunch of changes on her tour with that song and it became a very big and popular part of the show.”
Let’s all take a moment to marvel at Katy’s super-quick magic changes in the below performance of “Hot N Cold,” off of One of the Boys:
Pretty incredible, right? Maas told us that initially Perry was set to do only four changes, but soon ratcheted that up to about seven.
“I can’t share, magically, [what we do],” he said. “It’s not easy. It’s a lengthy, long process that we worked on for years and years and years. To teach her, you have to go in and you have to be with her physically — because they’re made specifically for her body.”
According to the duo’s website, Maas and Kaseeva initially spent more than $100,000 in costumes, material designers, music editing and more to put together their act — a mingling of ballroom dancing, magic and eye-popping illusion.
The process is so hard, Maas said, that not everyone who has reached out to them has been able to cut it. “We’ve had many others call us in and consult with us and once they see what’s actually involved and the work that has to be done, we’ve had several people tell us that they decided against it,” he said. “But Katy was absolutely terrific. She’s a go-getter. There’s no saying no with her.”
Now, not to throw shade or anything — it takes me five minutes to get all the buttons right on my flannels — but if you think Katy’s good at quick-change magic, you’ve obviously never seen Maas and Kaseeva take the stage.
I have — around 15 years ago at the Big Apple Circus — and let me tell you: Best performance I have ever seen. Anywhere. Hands-down. And I’ve seen Katy Perry’s Prismatic tour in full and basically 1,000 punk shows per week.
It was mind-blowing, in the truest sense of the word. I vividly remember my mom turning to me mid-perfomance — after Kaseeva changed behind a fall of glitter — and breathlessly saying, “That’s real magic.” I had to agree. And you will, too, after watching the below video of that very performance:
Did you watch it? All 6-plus minutes? Does your face currently look like this?
That’s what I thought.
Having performed for queens, presidents and Oprah, this duo has been honing their craft and entertaining the big wigs for decades now, but, according to Maas, working with Perry was one of the highlights on their career. And, it seems, they could be reunited with Katy soon enough; Perry’s team has been in touch about a brand-new project. “Of course we said yes,” Maas said.
“I was hoping she would utilize some of the ideas that we taught her with the instantaneous changes [during the Super Bowl],” Maas added. “But it didn’t turn out that way. I would love for her to come back to us and redesign some stuff for another song.”
I think I speak for all of us KatyCats when I say: So would we.