July 29, 2005
Christine Jorgensen Reveals: A unique lip-synch interview
By Jonathan Warman
Lypsinka is no longer the only performer to transform the craft of lip-synching into high art! In performance artist Bradford Louryk’s newest work, titled Christine Jorgensen Reveals, he gives a tip of the wig to the first well-known American male-to-female transsexual. Bradford does a straightforward lip-synch of the entirety of Miss Jorgensen’s only recorded interview, with precious little Lypsinka-style sound montage. Still, Louryk’s debt to the Lyp - who has acknowledged Bradford as a successor - is clear in his too precise gestures and gentle irony. His choice of subjects couldn’t be better: Jorgensen - a Bronx- born photographer who had her sex change in the early ’50s - was decades before her time in her nuanced understanding of gender’s fluidity and her enlightened, compassionate attitude toward homosexuality. While her interviewer (played on video by Rob Grace) halts and searches long and hard for the right words, Christine is fast on her feet and astonishingly well-spoken. Both bracingly funny and packed with startling insights, Christine Jorgensen Reveals is undeniably a new masterpiece in the too-sparse history of artistic lip-synch.
