Intimacy Coordinators and Intimacy Directors in the Performing Arts and Beyond

Intimacy directing is making a difference on stage and beyond

In Rochester’s International Theatre Program, intimacy directing is playing a growing role.
On-stage intimacy work has become a pillar of the theater industry, and it’s becoming a more integral part of performances by the International Theatre Program at the University of Rochester.
Leading the program’s effort is Sara Penner, a senior lecturer of theatre in the Department of English and a voice and acting coach for the International Theatre Program. She compares the work of an intimacy director to the role of a fight director.
“Any time you do a fight on stage, you have a skilled fight director on a set, so actors can be safe doing the work and not hurt each other,” she says. A fight director makes a safe space by carefully choreographing scenes. Intimacy directors help honor actors’ needs for bodily autonomy and boundaries by taking a similar approach.
The field of intimacy direction, coordination, or choreography began informally, about 10 to 15 years ago. Its growth accelerated along with the #MeToo movement, and training programs started to appear, as well as an accrediting agency. Access to theatrical intimacy training, through virtual workshops, grew nationwide during the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to Penner, it’s not necessary to be certified as an intimacy coordinator or director, but you do need certain skills. “You need to have a movement background that gives you the skills and language to explain movement in a desexualized way,” she says.
Penner’s interest in intimacy direction grew out of her work on a 2019 production for JCC CenterStage called Indecent. While playing Manke/Freida, she worked for the first time with an intimacy director. Says Penner, “I thought, ‘Why wasn’t this the way we have always worked?’”
From that experience, Penner went on to shape consent policies and practices for the International Theater Program. She was awarded a Teaching Innovation Grant in 2022 to support her work building new courses and practices. Penner also began teaching a consent and performance course through the Institute for Music Leadership at the Eastman School of Music.
While the International Theatre Program is no stranger to intimacy work in its repertoire, the spring 2023 production of Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses offered a suitable opportunity to introduce an intimacy director. A contemporary retelling of the ancient poem by Ovid, the play contains abstract sexual scenes, as well as depictions of drowning, incest, and simulated violence. “There needs to be a clear chain of communication for the students,” says Penner.
Brittney Broadus ’24, one of the performers in Metamorphoses, is grateful for Penner’s intimacy direction. Recalling a difficult role she played in a high school theater production, Broadus says she wishes she could have advocated for herself more and is now realizing things could have gone differently. She describes the experience of working with Penner as “being taught that it’s okay to talk about my boundaries as a person and knowing that there would be no repercussions for that.”

Learn more: https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/intimacy-directors-theater-intimacy-coordinators-on-screen-558652/

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