GENESIS P-ORRIDGE – Bight of the Twin (trailer) | Boiler Room (2016)

Bight of the Twin (2016) is a documentary film featuring Genesis P-Orridge, directed by Hazel Hill McCarthy III. The film follows Genesis as they travel to Benin, West Africa, to explore the Vodun (Voodoo) tradition.

The documentary captures Genesis’ deeply personal and spiritual journey as they engage with the twin fetish practices of Benin, which venerate deceased twins. This resonates with Genesis’ own life, as they lost their own twin, Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge, in 2007. The film explores themes of grief, identity, and spiritual transformation, as Genesis undergoes a Vodun initiation and is recognized as a twin within the Beninese tradition.

The film is visually striking, blending ethnographic documentation with a poetic, experimental aesthetic, reflecting both Genesis’ avant-garde sensibilities and the ritualistic nature of Vodun. It also highlights the intersection of Western and African spiritualities, raising questions about devotion, loss, and the permeability of identity.

Genesis Breyer P-orridge travels to Benin to explore voodoo twin cults in our new feature Bight of the Twin. Brace yourself for a dark encounter with duality, sexuality and grief, soundtracked by Psychic TV.

Bight of the Twin is a feature documentary where friends and collaborators, director Hazel Hill McCarthy III and cultural engineer Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, explore the relationship between Vodun and Western secular art and performance by trying to answer the question of “what is embodiment?” The filmmakers traveled to Ouidah, Benin looking for an up close, insider’s view of one of the world’s oldest religions through the radical exchange of beliefs and ideas with Genesis Breyer P-Orridge.

Beginning as an investigation, the nature of the project changed when Genesis was serendipitously initiated into the ‘Twin Fetish’—a tradition within Vodun that honors twins and has some surprising parallels to Genesis’ own artistic practice. Through these ceremonies, Genesis reaffirmed an eternal bond with h/er late wife and Pandrogyne partner, Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge, an activation of a complete state.

In filming, the nature of the film changed from simply being a catalyst for audiences to gain a wider understanding and acceptance of Vodun, to being itself, Vodun—an object that has been activated by creation. Here, in this visual collage from the film, Genesis elaborates on this.

Directed by Hazel Hill McCarthy III Produced by Hazel Hill McCarthy III, Douglas J. McCarthy, and Tiffany Naiman Co-Produced by Lewis Teague Wright Music Composed by DJMREX and COUM Transmissions Sound Design and Music Production by Ken “Hiwatt” Marshall Cameras Operated by Hazel Hill McCarthy III, Lewis Teague Wright, Douglas J. McCarthy and Eric Nordhauser