From the “why hasn’t this existed before” file is an article about staging intimacy with the same care employed with fight choreography.
The fact I came across this mention on economist Tyler Cowen’s Marginal Revolution blog rather than a performing arts industry aligned publication somewhat compounded my curiosity about the lack of conversation the topic.
The article in the Louisville Eccentric Observer discusses the need for clear rules when employing any type of intimacy onstage. Whether it is a kiss, nudity, simulated consensual intercourse or staging emotionally and physically intense depictions of sexual violence, abuse and unwelcomed physical contact, performers shouldn’t be left on their own to negotiate the interaction.
Those interviewed discuss the need to have someone act as third party providing an element of control and clarity for each situation. In some cases, they take a page from fight choreography practice and place the recipient of an action in control. (For those who aren’t familiar, in situations where a person is grappled, thrown, choked, pulled around by their hair, the person being attacked rather than the attacker is generally in control.)
Even if you could be guaranteed that everyone would be well behaved and well intention and no one would take advantage of the opportunity afforded by the way a show is staged to take liberties for their own gratification, being asked to engage in an unfamiliar action with an unfamiliar person is difficult for people.
Having someone who works toward assuring a environment of safety and comfort for all parties when it comes to intimate acts just as they do with stage combat seems like it should have been a standard practice for years. Reading the article I wouldn’t doubt that many groups may already approach these interactions with the same care they would have approached fight choreography and never thought they were doing anything special.
I do want to suggest a different term for the role be created. I have a sense that being asked to work with the “Intimacy Director” might make people as uncomfortable as being told to just improvise the scene because the director didn’t have any ideas about how it should be staged.
The article suggests that while every theater company may not have the means to hire an intimacy director, they can use existing guidelines to make things safer and more comfortable.
Among those guidelines and suggestions are the following:
They are practitioners who use concrete guidelines and techniques, such as the “four pillars” of intimacy direction, according to Alicia Rodis, a member of Intimacy Directors International.
Consent: Get the performers’ permission — including concrete boundaries and out of bounds body parts, and do it before you start.
Communication: Keep talking throughout the process. What’s working, what’s not, who’s touching who and how and do they feel safe.
Choreography: Performers wouldn’t spontaneously add an extra pirouette to a dance number or an extra kick to a fight scene. Don’t add an ass grab or extra kissing.
Context: Just because you kiss someone in one scene doesn’t mean you can kiss them in another scene without communicating about adjusting the choreography and seeking consent to do so. Just because someone is topless with you on stage, it doesn’t mean they won’t mind being topless around you offstage, or in another scene onstage.