Intimacy in the Performing Arts

Intimacy direction and coordination are new fields in the theater and film industries, respectively. The need for safe working environments for actors doing intimate scenes has always been present, but actors had to do without for most of theater and film history. The severe harms caused by the absence of safe working environments was brought to light during the Me Too Movement. Since 2016, professionals from many different fields have come together to build a new field from scratch that marries mental health work, choreography, and makeup and costume design to create artistically excellent, socially and culturally conscious, and safely-performed intimate scenes.