Intimacy Direction

Prepar­ing for inti­ma­cy is an intri­cate task. I will study the mate­ri­als and con­sult rel­e­vant spe­cial­ists to pre­pare for the work. This might include any spe­cif­ic kind of inti­ma­cy, rela­tion­ship style or forms. I will study any spe­cif­ic aspects of inti­ma­cy in ques­tion. I will also seek to bet­ter under­stand the con­tent and form we want to present. This helps me frame my spe­cif­ic approach­es and ways of work­ing for the project.

I will cre­ate an inti­ma­cy break-down based on the pro­duc­tion plans. With a writ­ten ‘rough break-down’, I will then lead dis­cus­sions about any spe­cif­ic demands of inti­ma­cy and about any addi­tion­al time or equip­ment we need.  This break-down gives a rough sup­port mate­r­i­al for all the oth­er artis­tic design­ers when they do their work. My intent is to make sure that every­body knows way before­hands what kind of extra work­flow to expect to make the inti­ma­cy in a sus­tain­able way.

I will craft a blue­print-lev­el inti­ma­cy plan based on per­form­ers’ expressed bound­aries, direc­tor’s and design­ers’ vision list­ing the prac­ti­cal choic­es rel­e­vant to the all the areas of respon­si­bil­i­ty. The plan will then be dis­cussed and fleshed out into prac­ti­cal sched­ules and to-do lists as the dis­cus­sions con­tin­ue. I will often include some back-up plans and safe­ty go-to’s so that we know what to expect in case of any problems.

I can hold a work­shop day (3–5 hours) to the whole work­ing group about rules around inti­ma­cy, con­sent and eti­quette around the inti­mate scenes. This work­shop includes pre­sent­ing some of the best prac­tices, the inti­ma­cy spe­cif­ic to the pro­duc­tion and pre­sent­ing rel­e­vant hand­outs to all the mem­bers of pro­duc­tion team. Hand­outs are pre­pared for every par­tic­u­lar pro­duc­tion so that every­one in the ensem­ble knows the safe­ty prin­ci­ples, expect­ed timeta­bles and what to expect in their role in this pro­duc­tion. When we include the whole work­ing group, work­ing in a sus­tain­able way becomes a group effor.

Chore­o­graph­i­cal work has already start­ed dur­ing pre­vi­ous steps. We have dis­cussed the char­ac­ters and sto­ry focus­ing on the choic­es dur­ing the scenes of inti­ma­cy with every­one involved. This same work will then con­tin­ue with key peo­ple in the same rehearsal space. After we cre­ate a com­mon sto­ry base, we’ll go into prac­ti­cal act­ing choic­es, “chore­og­ra­phy”.

Depend­ing of the actors, pro­duc­tion and the inten­si­ty of a spe­cif­ic moment this might take a form of very sub­tle move­ment choic­es to describe the com­plex growth of a par­tic­u­lar human rela­tion­ship through­out the whole per­for­mance — or some­thing very sim­ple to just give tools for actors to con­fi­dent­ly play with. The cho­sen moves serve the sto­ry in a way that allows the peo­ple to do their best pos­si­ble work. Some­times the moves affect the sto­ry too: a moment that sim­ply ‘works’ does still need a rea­son to exist in the story.

After we have fleshed out the sto­ry in chore­o­graph­i­cal form, I am avail­able for check-ins dur­ing the lat­ter process now and then. As the sto­ry evolves, some pieces of block­ing might need to be re-chore­o­graphed to bet­ter solid­i­fy the new con­text. This also hap­pens when some­thing changes in the set­ting: clothes, light­ning, music and scenog­ra­phy will cre­ate changes that need to be addressed. Check-ins might hap­pen when some­thing has sud­den­ly changes between the per­form­ers — or in some­one’s pri­vate life — which makes it nec­es­sary to rebuild some of the work. I am also just hap­py to sit in a room while peo­ple rehearse any scenes to get a pic­ture of how peo­ple pre­fer to work.

Dur­ing the process, I am hap­py to also give open lec­tures or work­shops about the­atri­cal or filmed inti­ma­cy if they are want­ed. My per­son­al project is to make the dif­fer­ent aspects of the work more inclu­sive and acces­si­ble to every­one inter­est­ed in the ‘mag­ic tricks of inti­mate moments’. If the basics of the work is made more acces­si­ble, it becomes eas­i­er to for me to work as an inti­ma­cy direc­tor in the future.

My work most­ly fin­ish­es at the first night, but as an inti­ma­cy direc­tor I am avail­able to be con­tact­ed in case some­thing unex­pect­ed hap­pens and inti­ma­cy must be re-addressed. This is all part of the pack­age we have dis­cussed in the beginning.