HowlRound Theatre Commons: I became aware of the intimacy field in about 2017 while I was living in Chicago and working in the DIY, devised storefront theatre scene. I recall hearing little rumbles about the idea of something called an “intimacy director,” and I got really curious. At the time, I was writing for this DIY arts magazine, and I had approached my editor and I got approved to write an article on this new role and how it might find its way into the DIY arts community.
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As today’s theatrical environment tends to be highly cisnormative, the expectation is often that transgender and/or genderqueer actors auditioning for roles will need to confine themselves into binary perceptions of gender and play their character in the limited way that character’s gender is usually performed. However this article points out that digging deeper into modern perceptions of gender even with classic and familiar characters can inform and definitely enrich today’s performances. Questions that have never been asked before about certain characters’ genders, once explored, open up a whole new field of modern interpretation that not only provides a more compelling and relatable theatre experience for audiences, but allows a more comfortable and inclusive environment for actors to draw on their own unique identities and gender expression, rather than stifling these things. Intimacy coordinators are very important to this field as they can facilitate this happening safely and purposely without creating additional stigma. However, these intimacy coordinators must be able to empathize with the lived experiences of the actors they are attempting to support.
This is an incredibly important conversation to have. It is important for people to see people who look like themselves in all aspects of the theatre and entertainment industry. It would feel wrong to have a man as the intimacy director for a scene between two women because the people represented in the scene are not being directed by a person who looks like them. The trans and nonbinary community is aware of things that the cisgender community may not be, and can bring another level to intimacy and certainly a feeling of safety for members of the LGBTQ+ community. They also have a great conversation about the whiteness in media and entertainment and how as Black and Brown people they can help communicate that to white people who are going to be blissfully unaware of their inability to survive in that space without facing adversity. Intimacy coordination and direction is a necessarily growing field and having trans and BIPOC individuals involved in it will only serve to make it stronger, better, and safer for everyone.
Among many other diversity-oriented conversations within theatre and art, it is especially important to hold a conversation about transgenderism within the industry, as well as the overall push of binary culture. One quote from the article that I think really resonated with me was this: “”As a trans woman of color, I had carried this sense I was being asked to succeed in an artistic discipline that was unable to provide me the tools to actually explore expansively what that meant for me. It’s a practice that asks you to know yourself, but only to explore that if you meet the rules of the system and the room. Or you’re not gonna be on stage at all.” (https://howlround.com/erasure-not-option-intimacy-advocacy-through-transgender-lens).” Theatre, and a lot of creative industries as a whole in terms of performance arts, preach about self-discovery while also limiting one's ability to experiment with their gender identity without the fear of being outcast and prevented from being able to perform at all. I relate to this ideal personally, as someone who grew up as a vocal music performer, due to the industry standard of AFAB people being Altos and Sopranos, and AMAB people being Tenors, Baritones, and Basses, with little room for movement within the ranks, which really affected my own journey within gender expression. The interview goes on to talk about a really interesting point about community background as well, which is a really important topic to talk about; a lot of opportunities are lost for transgender people because they come from small-community theatres, where the artistic community is not nearly as prevalent. It really brings us back to the commentary I touch on with the article ‘Ruth E Carter Becomes Only 2nd Costume Designer to Get Star on Hollywood Walk of Fame’ (https://www.thewrap.com/ruth-e-carter-becomes-only-2nd-costume-designer-to-get-star-on-hollywood-walk-of-fame/), about how we lose so many creative people and works within the industry because of lost opportunities that are taken away from/not given to people of minority groups. Theatre itself is an industry that tends to follow traditional gender binaries, and I think this interview in particular is a really good conversation on how that binary pressure limits the true self-expression many artists strive to obtain.
This article has a lot to unpack, and a really important read. Intimacy training has really only been on my radar in the last few years.. Makes me wonder about my high school theater department’s practices, but a conversation for another day (or article). The really big takeaways from this article pertain to the LGBTQIA+ community and Black & Brown artists. Accessibility has been a known problem in theater for a damn long time. And I think Ann and Raja share a great conversation with us: talking about actually creating spaces which welcome any human being, how that relates to intimacy, and how working at smaller community theaters in smaller towns can have a very different impact then the large cities. Grassroots organizing is a key component of what Raja is talking about. So much more to talk about, but I think the main thing for me to say here is read this article. Raja and Ann do the talking, and I’ll be going back to this for another indepth read again soon.
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