“The role of the intimacy coordinator has become more important in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein allegations and the broader #MeToo movement” (IOS, 2018) is written at the top of Intimacy On Sets website; it is one of the many recent services that provide guidance to directors in the wake of #MeToo, to determine set boundaries to both performers, directors and practitioners.
Intimacy coordinators and directors are a relatively new concept, and the troubling issue is, they shouldn’t be. Until the public condemnations of Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey, establishments were willingly allowing sexual violence to occur on stage;
Chicago’s Profiles Theater, which for decades was lauded for its raw, edgy performance
involving nudity and sexually explicit content, had permitted rampant sexual abuse and
violence on its stage. Violent acts that audience members assumed were choreographed
to avoid physical harm were, instead, on-stage beatings and sexual assaults.
(Duberman, 2018)
The presence of an intimacy director means an actor or director can no longer improvise their intimate scenes, which means there is a lesser change of these assaults occurring on stage if the scene is strictly choreographed. Siobhan Richardson of Intimacy Directors International agrees with this notion; “We’re trying to move away from the culture of ‘We’ll just figure it out as we go’ to choreographing intimacy like we choreograph everything else.” (Richardson, 2018) therefore removing a ‘grey area’ which can have; “a huge capacity for the possibility of harassment” (Rodis, 2018).
Intimacy safeguarding in theatre is so crucial as it starts with the individual. The systematic blocks of abuse in media are in part, due to the ignorance, or obliviousness of individuals who have witnessed it occur. Its important to start on this basis so that the system of abuse is dismantled at the top, to educate people to reflect on their own behaviour. It’s an alarming notion, but “Now is about taking the opportunity of the cultural shift to look at the mirror and look at our past and say: ‘I didn’t know, but now I can educate myself and work better.’ (Rodis, 2018) when we start to recognise this behaviour, we can dismantle it. As theatre makers, we have a moral responsibility to protect the wellbeing of our performers and directors, and with the rise of intimacy directors and coordinators, we can and will, do better to protect people in an institution that has failed so many times before.
Bibliography:
Duberman, A. (2018). Meet The ‘Intimacy Directors’ Who Choreograph Sex Scenes. [online] HuffPost. Available at: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/intimacy-directors-choreograph-sex-scenes_n_5b0d87dae4b0fdb2aa574564 [Accessed 14 Apr. 2019].
Intimacy on Set. (2018). the guardian – How an Intimacy coordinator works with actors on sex scenes. [online] Available at: https://www.intimacyonset.com/press/the-guardian-how-an-intimacy-coordinator-works-with-actors-on-sex-scenes [Accessed 16 Apr. 2019].