Directing Desire : Intimacy Choreography and Consent in the Twenty-First Century

Directing Desire explores the rise of consent-based and trauma-informed approaches to staging sexually and sensually charged scenes for theater in the contemporary U.S., known as intimacy choreography. From 2015 to 2020, intimacy choreography transformed from a grassroots movement in experimental and regional theaters into a best practice accepted in Hollywood and on Broadway. Today, intimacy choreographers have become a veritable "intimacy industry" in the cultural sphere, sparking attention from Rolling Stone to The New York Times to the sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live. This book analyzes the forces that have led to intimacy choreography’s meteoric rise and asks what implications the field has for theater practice more broadly. Building a theoretical framework for intimacy directing, Directing Desire also strives to reorient the conversation in the field so that artists understand not only best practices in consent but also intersectional frameworks that expand and rework consent. Acknowledgements Contents About the Author Chapter 1: Introduction: Boundary Practice 1.1 Imagining Intimacy Choreography 1.2 The Limits of Consent 1.3 Toward a Theory of Sexual Labor in Theater 1.4 Intimacy Choreography and Abjection 1.5 Feeling Together in the Sexual Commons 1.6 Chapter Breakdown Chapter 2: Erotic Repetitions: A Brief History of Intimacy Choreography 2.1 Repetition Exercises 2.2 Intimate Theatrics Before #MeToo 2.3 Rehearsing Intimacy Choreography’s History 2.4 Influences on Intimacy Choreography Fight Choreography Movement Directing Sex and Relationship Therapy Black Acting Methods 2.5 The Adoption of Consent Discourse 2.6 Consent-as-Contract and Consent-as-Exploration Chapter 3: Sexual Script Analysis: Sex Positivity and Authorship in Intimate Scenes 3.1 The Trouble with “Presence” 3.2 The Male Gaze and Structures of Desire 3.3 Visual Identification in Alice Birch’s Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again 3.4 Flipping the Script 3.5 Wanting to Want 3.6 Sex Positivity and Its Discontents 3.7 Choreographing Intimacy Beyond Desire Chapter 4: “Intermediate” Pornography Mediating Presence with the Intimacy Kit 4.1 Choreographing Intimacy Between Media 4.2 Thomas Bradshaw’s Theatrical Pornography 4.3 Amateurism and the Fantasy of the Immediate 4.4 Professionalism, Props, and Cyborg Sexualities 4.5 Simulating Sexuality with the Intimacy Kit 4.6 Remediating Erotic “Presence” Chapter 5: Playing with Trauma: Race, Consent, and Culturally Responsive Intimacy 5.1 Kink Encounters in Jeremy O. Harris’s Daddy and Slave Play 5.2 Racializing Touch 5.3 Power Plays and BDSM’s Status Question 5.4 Sleeping with the Ancestors 5.5 Trauma as a Scene Partner 5.6 Returning to Sensation Chapter 6: Immersive Intimacy: Violation and Transformative Justice in Immersive Performance 6.1 Immersive Theater’s Aesthetic of Intimacy 6.2 Intimate Unmaskings in Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More 6.3 Re-eroticizing the Senses 6.4 Optimization in the Experience Economy 6.5 Performance Frames and Procedural Justice 6.6 Transformative Justice in the #MeToo Era 6.7 Contract Negotiations and the Actor-Audience Contract Chapter 7: Conclusion: Keep in Touch 7.1 Intimacy Choreography as Maintenance Work 7.2 Asexual Intimacies in the Sexual Commons 7.3 Supporting Sensation Bibliography Index