Hi. I'm Chelsea. This is Theatrical Intimacy Education.
We stage intimacy.
We want to teach you how to do it.
Actually, we want to teach your whole department how to do it.
That's why we started a company.
We're here to make it all less weird.
We began this work because we saw a problem and we are here to fix it.
So many theatre artists have had experiences with insensitive, unethical, awkward, or traumatizing direction in scenes that involve physical intimacy, nudity, or sexual violence. So many were left wondering if they did something wrong, or worse, if they should just toughen up and take it. Incoming freshman at colleges and universities have already seen enough “just kiss her’s” to last them a lifetime. The professional theatre echoes this awfulness back to us hundredfold.
We are here to end it.
That’s why we choose to focus on changing educational theatre. By working from within the educational system, we can change the profession. By training emerging artists in ethical, efficient, and decidedly desexualized practices, we can take out the creepy weirdness of staging intimacy in our profession for good.
The Guiding Principles: Ethically, Efficiently, Effectively
Ethically
Desexualized language and consensual choreography is the backbone of the progression we teach. We will be thinking about finding an oppositional rock with their partner, opening and closing distance, visible power shifts, and weight of contact. We don’t talk sex positions or use sexual language. We don’t need to. We give the power back to the performers and give you the tools to create safe, professional, dynamic choreography that meets everyone's needs, all while respecting the boundaries of the artists in the room.
Our work establishing clear boundaries will delight your Title IX office, and fewer students will cry in yours.
Efficiently
Our work will never grind your process to a halt. If our methods can’t save a director time, they won't use them. If they don’t use them, we aren’t getting our progression out there. We teach you how to use our progression so that your department’s precious resources can go towards things your department needs. By working from a tested progression with easy to follow steps, any director, regardless of experience, can make staging intimacy an easy part of their process.
We make you the expert to save everyone time and money in the long run.
Effectively
A scene built on feelings won’t last. A scene built on solid choreography can withstand tech week, finals week, and will hold up through closing night. A progression that empowers the performers to approach intimacy the way they approach every other scene allows them to focus on storytelling, rather than worrying if their scene partner is trying to make out with them. It makes for better rehearsals, better productions, and moves us towards a more impactful theatre.
We give you the tools to choreograph exactly what you need to tell your story without turning your rehearsal room into group therapy.
We are Theatrical Intimacy Education.
We are dedicated to empowering artists with the tools to ethically, efficiently, and effectively stage intimacy and sexual violence in educational theatre. We teach workshops, train faculty, guide students, and stage quite a bit of intimacy ourselves. We are scholars, artists, directors, and educators.
Our goal is to change the industry from the inside out. We each have a story about how we ended up here, but we are here to change the story for students. If staging intimacy ethically, efficiently, and effectively can be as natural in your department as thanking a stage manager, we will have done our job.
We are here to help. Reach out. Send us a message. Let's get started.