Introduction: Boundary Practice

Abstract

This introduction defines intimacy choreography and describe its growth as a specialization from 2015 to 2020. Starting with the example of Yehuda Duenyas, an artist who served as “sex choreographer” off-Broadway at The Flea Theater in 2015, it narrates how discourse around sexuality in theater shifted dramatically since then, largely thanks to the activism of artists immediately before and after the #MeToo Movement. Drawing on interviews with intimacy choreographers, I highlight this tension as a product of intimacy choreography’s dual functions as a workplace protection and facilitator for artistic exploration. Intimacy choreography bridges intersecting norms of sexual liberalism and sex positivity, and these two influences sometimes produce unspoken contradictions in the work. Third, I ground Directing Desire theoretically in existing literature from theater studies, sexuality studies, and porn studies to argue that staging sexuality has been a form of abject labor historically marginalized in theatrical production and scholarship. Lastly, I outline the work that intimacy choreography can perform beyond consent. Intimacy choreography shifts the focus of staging sexuality from individual desire to shared choreography, a process of forming what I call a sexual commons—a shared space to negotiate the scripts that artists perform and the infrastructures sustaining intimate performance.