The seeds were planted at least ten years ago, when a few highly trained movement specialists started noticing that they were often called upon to handle scenes of sexual intimacy in rehearsal rooms. Working in isolation, they all realized that while many of their existing skills could be applied to that task, new techniques were necessary to choreograph intimacy in an ethical, efficient way.
9 comments:
I would have initially thought that exact choreography for intimate moments in a scene removes the organic nature of it. But this article is sharp in explaining how it could actually benefit the scene and provide some closure for the actor. Acting is based in feeling and emotion, but those change every day depending on the mood of the individual. Finding more concrete ways to solidify the way a scene is played is much more effective. I am still amazed at how often an actor must pull themselves out of a mood and immerse themselves into the appearance of another. Intimacy choreographers are so important because they take the time to think about the psychological effects of a particular scene or moment. When everyone else in the rehearsal room is focused on completing their job to the fullest abilty, it can be difficult to account for all the details an Intimacy Director is trained to do.
This shift for the industry is phenomenal. It’s interesting that it’s taken so long for Intimacy coordinators to be created when we’ve had things like fight choreographers for such a long time. Because intimacy is one of the most private acts, it historically has not been on the stage, but as we as a society are becoming more comfortable with our bodies, for intimacy is making it’s way onstage. Not even on the intimacy side of things, but in the article, they mentioned that actors are having to be trained to make eye contact “because most of their social interaction happens through their phones” which is incredibly sad, but is something that I’ve definitely noticed wandering around the CMU campus. The other thing that really caught my attention was that because people have experienced trauma, sometimes related to intimacy, I wonder if that’s something that casting directors need to start taking into account.
I really like this article and the information/topic it is covering. At first glance I thought this article was just going to be about some person working with like high school actors about a kissing scene, but it is really cool to read about actual progress that is being made in this community. I think the initial idea of an intimacy director sounds somewhat childish in a way, but when put into terms of defining boundaries and essentially preventative measures towards reducing sexual harassment, the title makes a whole lot of sense. This article even mentions important steps in the process that they work through to make sure everyone is on the same comfortable page. I really like the one in particular about talking. I think keeping an open dialogue and conversation is key. If you don’t feel safe to voice concerns early on, there is no safe way of moving forward.
I have always heard people think of staged intimacy as alike to stage combat, and in a way, they are both very similar. Both need full engagement from the actors, rehearsal and precision in the actions, and an acknowledgement that this is not the real deal. But even in the most intense stage fight, no one gets punched, or slapped, or knocked out- everything happens at a safe distance. But, in staged intimacy, the actors do touch or kiss each other, which brings up an entirely different level of contact and connection. This article talks about the duality that must be maintained between the emotion portrayed on stage and ensuring that the moments are played the same every night and the actors are comfortable with what’s happening in that moment. The quote “There’s no boundary an actor has that’s going to get in the way of telling the story the director is trying to tell.” really stuck with me, because we shouldn’t be asking actors to make sacrifices to their mental health to tell a director’s vision. At the end of the day, it is just fake houses for fake people, and we need to remember that.
I thought this article was fascinating. The beginning was especially impactful by the way they were discussing any discomfort as just being uncomfortable or if the nature of the situation was approaching a boundary. Taking a close and crafted approach to intimate moments in a production seems like a very smart and important thing to ensure the safety and comfort of the actors but also creating a believability for the audience. Having this insight and explanation feels very important to me because it is an aspect of theater that I had not heard much about before coming to Carnegie Mellon University and something I didn’t understand was as relevant as I now know it to be. It really does appear to be an art and craft as the title of the article describes the subject matter to be and I am glad that I am more aware of this important aspect of this field.
How the theatre industry stages intimacy has come a long way even over just the past few years. While it’s still fairly strongly correlated with how big a theater is or how big it’s budget is, intimacy coordinators are increasingly considered necessary, which is a positive step. Even for small theaters that can not afford (or perhaps more accurately, don’t want to afford) a professional intimacy choreographer, the basic techniques and concepts are increasingly built into general knowledge, and at least partially utilized by directors and actors themselves. While this is certainly not ideal, it’s certainly a step in the right direction. I think the kind of theatre most in need of professional intimacy coordination, and least likely to have it, is high school theatre. Highschools have actors in some of their most formative years, who often don’t have experience advocating for themselves, and often even have amateur directors, and yet intimacy choreography is rare.
The training our generation received in school seemed silly at the time. Once a month we had anti-bullying days in which we had lessons on bullying instead of English, science, math, or history. At the time it was boring and repetitive but I didn’t even think how generations above never talked about bullying and were not taught in the same way. As this generation enters industries these anti-bullying days are having real effects in peoples and industries live way beyond the schoolyard. When I began college we spend a week learning the university and there was an entire day related to consent. That day doesn’t and will never completely solve sexual harassment on college campuses but it will make an even deeper change on how we talk about sexual intimacy. It was very interesting to see the effects of this training on the article. I have no doubt there will be even more changes like this in the future and having a group trained to be aware of all of these things in a rehearsal room is likely extremely useful in a rehearsal room.
I just read a chapter from Anne Bogart’s “A Director Prepares: Seven Essays on Art and Theatre” focusing on what “violence” means in terms of acting. In the chapter, she repeatedly mentions the importance of the intuitive as same as exactness when acting in front of the audience. She mentions how acting is violent because once you are on stage, you have to be brave enough to believe in the intuitive, even though you would not be able to avoid the embarrassment of being all the masks you have torn off. While I strongly agree that being an actor involves mixing their private matters and the career, I think this nature of stage acting causes the distorted emotion of self-sacrifice in actors. Using the words in the article, it makes actors harder to “clarify what the difference is between being vulnerable and having a boundary” is. In addition, once the actor gets used to self-sacrificing, it gets harder for them to notice the psychological stress until it reaches the limit. I believe intimacy direction could not only prevent a sexual-harassment, but it could also prevent the sudden collapse of the actors.
Intimacy direction is such an important part of the theatre and a very new concept that has emerged fairly recently. Intimacy has an important role on stage and in film. However, it is so important to step back for a moment and recognize that while these two characters may be in love, behind them are actors who have varying levels of comfort especially with someone who is not a partner. I strongly believe that every show and project should have an intimacy director to some degree, as it is an opportunity to discuss and work with the comfort levels of certain actors while still working towards the director's end vision. I find it very interesting that along with other acting styles, there will start to become standardized techniques for scenes revolving any sort of intimacy. As this article mentions, it is so important for everyone on a production team to feel safe both mentally and physically and this is a great way to ensure that. Elena Keogh
Post a Comment