Intimacy Direction

Fight director and theatre artist Danielle Rosvally and founder of Heartland Intimacy Design and Training and associate professor Kate Busselle come together to interrogate the concept of “certification” in fight direction and intimacy coordination by illuminating current training practices, opportunities, and programs in the field.

Ann James interviews Cha Ramos about her approach to intimacy direction, which pulls from Cha’s multidisciplinary theatrical career, her Cuban American upbringing, and—perhaps most crucially—her intentional rediscovery of spirituality as an essential part of artistic practice.

Ann James talks to Adi Cabral about Cabral’s path though the intimacy industry. As a practitioner and professor, Cabral approaches intimacy choreography by centering harm prevention while working to create opportunities for students to identify and grow within their boundaries.

Ann James chats with Jyreika Guest, who works as both an intimacy specialist and an actor, about framing intimacy work for actors. Jyreika shares her hopes for a future in which consent is an automatic part of rehearsal processes.

Ann James sits down with intimacy choreographer Raja Benz to discuss her experience implementing cultures of consent in rehearsal rooms, cultivating a localized approach to intimacy work, and centering trans perspectives in theatrical processes.

Ann James interviews Brooke Haney, creator of The Actor’s Warm Down, about closure practices in intimacy practice, when to pass work to someone else, and the need to represent queer stories through an authentically queer lens.

Ann James chats with Rocio Mendez about her work as an intimacy director, connections between intimacy choreography and fight direction, and getting excited about theatre’s fieldwide trend toward including intimacy specialists in production teams.

Ann James interviews Kaja Dunn, who works both as an intimacy specialist and a scholar of race and choreography, about her decade-long path through the intimacy industry. They discuss the way to bring intimacy professionals into a production process, the importance of citing Black women’s contributions to the field, and the need diversify who is telling stories on our stages.

Ann James sits down with Chelsey Morgan to discuss the way their background in multiple intimacy work methodologies informs their work as a facilitator, director, writer, and intimacy specialist. Across all their work, Chelsey curates a practice that individualizes approaches to intimacy based on the needs of both the actors and the story.

Ann James introduces the Rebuilding for the Future: A Convergence of Thought Leaders in Intimacy Practice series with this call for intimacy professionals to build a foundation of equity in the industry by interrogating available mentorship and training structures. This essay begins that work by highlighting the need for a diverse pool of training ideologies and methods; and the interview-based series that follows takes up that need by highlighting the perspectives of eight practitioners who navigate the intimacy industry in a variety of ways.

Katrina Stelk discusses the role of nudity in theatre and the problem with requiring body checks during the casting process.

Dr. Ayshia Mackie-Stephenson believes that when it comes to intimacy directing, choreography can celebrate Black love as an act of racial and sexual justice.

Alli St. John shares a guide she developed for directors of youth theatre to prioritize consent and safe practices for staging theatrical intimacy.

Playwright Hallie Palladino chats with intimacy director Gaby Labotka about how intimacy directors approach scripts, the importance of a well-chosen adverb, and the necessity of innovation, now more than ever, to keep performers healthy and safe.

As artists and companies re-examine the failures of their infrastructures and unconscious biases, Emily C. A. Snyder argues that the lessons learned and challenges faced so far within the field of intimacy direction may be of particular value.

Ann C. James reflects on the quickly growing field of intimacy direction, arguing that it is vital for the leadership to include people of color so that stories centering on racialized sexual trauma and non-white romantic intimacy can be told in the most truthful ways.

Holly L. Derr examines the history of the intimacy choreography movement in the United States and speaks to several of the artists behind it all.

Sharanya shares her thoughts on restaging gendered violence, including how the representation of sexual violence has the power to be scripted and also to script, the importance of de-spectacling violence, and more.