Laverne Cox Joins Brother M. Lamar for 1st Live Event

Emmy-nominated actress ("Orange is the New Black") and activist Laverne Cox and her twin brother, artist M. Lamar will speak at Baruch Performing Arts Center's Mason Hall on Tuesday, September 9 at 8 p.m.

The two will discuss growing up in small-town Alabama, the realization of the different paths their lives would take and how they came to embrace this, their family's reactions, and their current careers and activism. This is the first time the two have spoken together publicly.

Laverne Cox is a critically acclaimed actress who currently appears in the Netflix original series "Orange is the New Black," playing the groundbreaking role of Sophia Burset, an incarcerated African-American transgender woman. Cox is the first trans-woman of color to have a leading role on a mainstream scripted television show, and received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for the role. TIME magazine named Sophia Burset the fourth most influential fictional character of 2013.

Most known for his music and performance-based work, this physical installation cross-references romanticism, surrealism, horror, pornography, gospel, metal and early silent film to propose radical potentialities of blackness. M. Lamar writes songs that are at once a product of his African-American heritage, drawing heavily from the negro spiritual. Combined with his operatic voice and piano playing that is at once interested in western classical music and dissonant black metal Lamar's sound makes one think that things are so catastrophic that the world might end at the conclusion of one of his tracks.

The Cox/Lamar event kick off GenderFluid, a week of performances and appearances by transgender and gender fluid artists. Performances include "An Evening with Holly Woodlawn" (Sept. 13), "Kate Bornstein: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us" (Sept. 12), "Ian Harvie: Superhero" (Sept. 13), and "Busted: The Musical" (Sept. 11), as well as other speeches, presentations, and films.

Tickets are $20, with a $100 VIP ticket available that includes preferred seating and a backstage photo op with Cox and Lamar. Mason Hall is located at 17 Lexington Avenue (at 23rd Street). Tickets can be purchased by calling 212-352-3101, online at www.SpinCycleNYC.com, or at the Baruch Performing Arts Center box office (entrance on 25th Street between Lexington and Third Avenues).

For a complete list, visit http://spincyclenyc.com/index.php/live-performances/100-genderfluid.