If you frequent The Radio Bar or Spanish Moon, you’ve probably seen a slender black man in lipstick and fishnets, standing tall in platforms and outdressing everyone at the bar.
Local performer Jordy Marilyn has been living in Baton Rouge for 13 years, but has only been making art, fashion and music under that name since 2009. And he is no mere cake boy, as his upcoming Marie Antoinette-themed show would imply.
Marilyn said gender, like much else, is unclassifiable in his case, but calls himself a man. He said he doesn’t live a double life as a performer in heels or person in slacks.
“Ninety percent of my identity is Jordy Marilyn,” Marilyn said. “I associate [my real name] with my past.”
He said his decision to choose a glamourous alias was not driven by ego, however.
“People can usually get that you’re fabulous,” he said. “They want to hear something else.”
Brag-rap is too simple for Marilyn. He says he prefers to consume and make art with multiple layers of meaning and content, like his new single “Cannibal Creamery,” in which cannibalism is a metaphor for oral sex.
Marilyn didn’t start creating until after graduating high school. He made costumes just to go out drinking, experimented with photoshoots and slowly evolved into the outrageous performer he is today from what he called a “club kid.”
A club kid, according to Marilyn and the movie “Party Monsters,” is a young person who is paid to show up at clubs and look fabulous. “They see no difference between the club life and reality,” he said.
He said Imbeance, the name for his art house for all of his work and that of his collaborators, is a meaningless word that has come to embody all that club-kid life stands for, like not taking things too seriously.
The eponymous showcase this Friday is the second of its kind and a farewell show heralding his move to Chicago. Held at Spanish Moon, it will be centered more on music than the last, Marilyn said.
In addition to Marilyn’s own three-song performance, local DJs and the bands Roman Discipline and Nancy — for whom Marilyn often go-go dances — will have full sets. Marilyn will be styled as “Jordie Antoiefette” to keep with the Marie Antoinette theme.
While he doesn’t believe in planning for the future, Marilyn said he has a premonition that his move to Chicago will be a wonderful opportunity for him.
“Who really knows what I’ll do when I get to Chicago, and who I’ll meet,” he said.
Some may assume that Marilyn is moving to Chi-town to escape stereotypical Deep South close-mindedness, but he said that growing up in Baton Rouge was easier for him than one would expect.
He said he made it easy by choosing his company well, and his audience has only grown during his time here.
“I don’t just appeal to the gay bar anymore,” he said. The surprising ones among his fans, he said, are the racists and religiously minded people of southern Louisiana.
These days, he gets more adoration than confrontation. According to Marilyn, he has the issue of people getting too excited about him, wanting pictures when he is at the grocery store or having a beer at the bar.
“I like people to look at me like they’ve seen the devil,” Marilyn said. “I’m an artist. I’m nice, I’m sweet, but don’t let that fool you.”
Marilyn’s Imbeance showcase will be at 11 p.m. Friday at Spanish Moon. Entry will be $10, or $7 if in costume, which doesn’t have to match the Marie Antoinette theme.

Gallery • 6 Photos

Lauren Duhon

Baton Rouge resident Jordy Marilyn has created his own genre of performance art, which he titles "IMBEANCE". The last show will be on Friday, Sept. 20, 2013, at the Spanish Moon before Marilyn moves to Chiacgo.