I had the honor of being on South Florida radio staple Sundial today to talk about the intimacy profession and give a teaser of my conversation as part of the Miami Film Festival.
Hear the episode here. Get tickets to the conversation here.
I'm an MFA!
Finally, after a long road of graduate exploration beginning in 2016, I am excited to share I officially hold a Master (hate it) of Fine Arts degree in Interdisciplinary Arts with concentrations in both Decolonial Arts Praxis and Performance Creation Concentrations from Goddard College.
This wasn’t a journey I took alone. The following is my acknowledgements page from my thesis, Working Consent: Ethical Engagement with Collaborators, Audiences, and the Land in Dance and Theatre Pedagogy and Practice.
Read MoreMoney and Time
Money is a challenge for every artist. Despite the buzz around Intimacy work for theatre, film, dance, tv, and opera, payment remains a sticky subject for any Intimacy Director or Intimacy Coordinator.
Read More2022 in Review
2022 was a big year of work for me. Here’s my year in review!
Read MoreIntimacy Direction Conversation in South Florida Theatre Magazine
Last week, Luis Roberto Herrera, Gaby Tortoledo, and I sat down for a conversation about what intimacy direction is, and how it can support actors for South Florida Theater Magazine. You can check out the whole piece here. Hopefully, this is the start of a larger conversation with the community!
The Relationship of Consent and Power
Consent cannot exist if someone is under manipulation, influence, or coercion. Therefore, consent cannot exist when power dynamics are at play. Because power dynamics, whether social-structural or embodied, influence how we chose, behave, and speak.
Which is why consent does not exist for performers or students.
Read MoreAccountability: Connecting the Dots of Those Last 2 Posts
If you’ve read the last 2 posts, Bad Behavior in Theatre Communities and What’s the Point of Art?, read on! If not, scroll down and read those.
Ok. So these posts were in response to some specific events in my theatre community. But in conversations with folks around these events, and my responses, I’ve realized it’s not all they have in common. They may be in response to something, but both posts are actually about accountability.
Read MoreBad Behavior in Theatre Communities
Shows with nudity, intimacy, and/or hyper-exposure require extreme vulnerability from actors. We have consistently seen actors in our community provide incredible performances in relevant, nuanced shows, in these states of vulnerability.
Sadly, they often get reduced to their bodies' appearance, rather than their skills in transporting us into a story. Also, how ridiculous that that those of us who are professionals in the crafts of theatre-making are doing this. We have the best opportunity to discuss technique, skill, character, and story, but we go for looks?!
Safety in theatre or in film doesn't just include creating a safer space for work to be done. It also means respecting the work AS WORK and our colleagues (and even when we are audiences, we are still colleagues) AS COWORKERS. Exploitation and harassment have no place in a workplace.
As a community we should be disappointed and horrified when exploitation and harassment happen, and are not met with resistance or the desire for change. We absolutely should less safe when one of us not safe.
This is not about 1 person or 1 incident. This about bad behavior.
No matter who is committing the exploitation or harassment, no matter who is receiving it: it is exploitation or harassment.
The Other Side
We know, somewhere in our brains, when we see social media posts that we aren’t always getting the whole story. So, this post is my attempt to be transparent. To share the whole story, or at least another side of it. CW: depression, anxiety, negative self-talk, ED
Read MoreThe Thank You Speech I May Never Get to Give
Last night was the Silver Palm Awards, and just over two weeks away are the Carbonells. There were no speeches at the Silver Palms, and I do not expect to win the Carbonell in the category I was nominated for. (Not false humility. The video projection mappings nominated in Artistic Speciality were cool AF!)
So, I’ve decided to write and post a thank you speech here.And, best of all, there’s no time limit!
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