Tribeca Q&A: ‘The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye’

Marie Losier Lady Jaye and Genesis P-Orridge in a scene from the documentary “The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye.”

Love may come in many forms, but it has never quite taken the shape seen in Marie Losier’s documentary “The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye,” which makes its debut at the Tribeca Film Festival on Monday. This film chronicles the lives of Genesis P-Orridge, the experimental artist and musician from the bands Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, and her partner, Lady Jaye, who expressed their unity by becoming near-duplicates of each other. The art experiment, in which the couple underwent plastic surgery to create a single, androgynous sexual identity, began in 2003, and continued even after Lady Jaye died in 2007.

In these excerpts from a recent phone conversation, Ms. Losier, an experimental filmmaker and film curator at FIAF/The French Institute Alliance Francaise, shares her observations on the intertwined lives of her subjects and how her relationship with them began when she accidentally stepped on Ms. P-Orridge’s foot.

How were you first introduced to Genesis and Lady Jaye?

It was completely unexpected. It was almost eight years ago and I was finishing a film on Tony Conrad. I went to see a concert at the Knitting Factory, of Alan Vega from Suicide, and it was a really bad concert. I was really disappointed. But the third part was Genesis with her band Thee Majesty, so she was just reciting poems with some guitar background, and I was really mesmerized by her.

I knew nothing about her, nothing about the band. The next day, I went to an art opening in SoHo, and there were so many people I walked on the foot of someone, so I turn around to apologize and it was Genesis. So she smiled at me. And I said, “I’m really sorry, and I saw you yesterday and it was a really wonderful concert.” She talked to me for a little bit, and she said I really would love to see you again. One week later, she said come over.

What was that like?

I went to Brooklyn, to Bushwick, and got brought to her basement, where I sat on a giant plastic chair in the shape of a hand, and then Lady Jaye came down with a coffee for me, and they talked with me for a long time about their project. Then Jaye looked at me and she said, “You’re the one.” And I was like, “The one what?” “You’re the one we want to be part of filming us. As much as you want and the way you want it.” “O.K., sure.” And that was the beginning of like seven years of collaboration with them. It was a completely unexpected way of meeting them. It’s been a very dear friendship and a really amazing experience.

How far were they into their experiment at this point?

About two years into it. Genesis was already a she, at least in terms of how you talked to her, and already had breast implants. I was not interested in filming any of the surgery or anything, and they never, never asked to see images or control anything. But it was hard at times, because of course everyone tested me to see who I was.

How did they test you?

To push me, to see how resistant I was, how stubborn I was, how delicate or not I was. Because I was just alone filming them. They saw right away that I wasn’t a fan, or someone who came from the commercial world. I wasn’t making money on the images. Very quickly they just saw what I was doing and it became a completely different relationship.

Often when people hear about Genesis and Lady Jaye they’re taken aback, or deeply curious. What was it like to be around them all the time?

It was comfortable, because, they were really – like you see in the film – very mundane. Incredibly creative, incredibly strange to other people, maybe, but when you know them in their daily lives, it was very comforting and very normal. They would just have tea at 5 o’clock and do their own shopping, walk around the block with the dog.

Did people take notice of them when you went out in public?

Yeah, of course. There would be a lot of weird gazes on the street. People who knew Genesis would approach her to get autographs for Throbbing Gristle. But they were protected by each other, and they worked together all the time – on collages, on music. And their friends are really, really good people, not at all like fans or freaks. As weird as the world they inhabit was, there was also a lot of protection from that world around them.

Genesis suggests in the film that his two daughters are comfortable with the life she has chosen. Did you get that sense from them as well?

Yes, completely. Caresse and Genesse, I met them many times, and they were brought up by Gen mostly, so they call her father of course. It’s very natural to them to see Genesis changing all the time and exploring new territories, and seeing him being very feminine from the beginning. They have a very close, simple relationship with their father. They’re very, very close actually.

Many viewers of the film will know that Lady Jaye died in 2007, but in the film her death seems to happen very abruptly. Was that how you experienced it?

I was there when it happened, and it was shocking because it happened in one day. The next day there was no more Jaye. Gen completely broke down. I thought it would be the end of the film, because I didn’t want to intrude with my camera in Genesis’s new life. But she asked me to keep finishing the film, because it was Jaye’s desire to be part of that. So we kept going, which was very difficult for a while. I had to be the filmmaker and the friend. I had to go home with a lot on my chest. It was a tough three years to shoot and finish it.

As devastating as it is for anyone to lose their partner – and particularly in this instance – do you think that Genesis has found a new life without Jaye?

Totally. But Jaye’s there constantly. The tattoos on her arm are in Jaye’s image. When you hear Genesis talk she doesn’t say “I,” she says “we,” as if Jaye was always there. The project keeps going. And she has a lot of traits, physically – she didn’t change back to being a man. She stayed with Jaye’s features and being this androgyne mix of things. A lot of the artwork she’s doing, her music and her lectures, are still linked to that. She moved on and she keeps changing and searching, but Jaye’s very present. She even told me, It would take a lot for me to ever be with someone else because that person would have to accept that Jaye would always be there.

Is Genesis still part of your life?

Completely. We’re friends and we go see movies and have coffee. She’s been incredibly supportive of this film. She never asked to see the editing – she saw just the results. The friendship is there, intact and the same.

Have you decided what your next film project will be?

Not really. I think I’ll just let life bring me to the next one. Maybe I will walk on someone else’s foot.