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They did everything for each other — and for art. When Genesis P-Orridge, industrial-rock revolutionary and co-founder of Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, moved to New York in the 1990s, he fell in love with a dominatrix almost twenty years his junior. So he married her, making her Mrs. Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge and one half of a fifteen-year relationship that spanned music, art and gender in its experimentation. Then he became her.
Or, rather, they became each other. In The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye, producer Marie Losier chronicles their body modification for a project they called “Creating the Pandrogyne.” For years, they underwent cosmetic surgery to resemble each other — including matching breast implants — to create a third being by dramatically reforming themselves. Through 65 minutes of home video and archival footage, Losier traces their tale from Genesis’s career to the sudden death of Lady Jaye, which left him one and a half people who used to be three.
“It’s not spectacle as much as theatrical, and it truly was love,” says Keith Garcia, Denver FilmCenter program manager. “They were two parts of the same thing, and the best way for them to become one was literally to become one. This isn’t The Notebook.”
The film opens tonight at 7 p.m. at the FilmCenter, 2510 East Colfax Avenue; tickets are $9.75. For more information, call 303-595-3456 or visit www.denverfilm.org.
April 27-May 3, 2012
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