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They Kiss Intimacy Choreographer Carrie Pozdol helps theater companies choreograph their steamiest scenes. BY SAUNIA POWELL
W
hen Carrie Pozdol stands in front of the cast of Theatre Cedar Rapids’ winter musical, Kinky Boots, she wears a T-shirt that reads “make it less weird.” Because that is just what she is there to do. Though she is an accomplished actor and director in her own right, Pozdol is at this rehearsal in her capacity as the show’s intimacy choreographer. Her job here is manifold and important, but you won’t be faulted if you’ve never heard of it. The practice of having an intimacy choreographer for theatrical productions is only a few years old. In 1983, film director Peter Bogdanovich told Fresh Air host Terry Gross that “the main job of a director is to create an atmosphere in which the players feel comfortable and feel they can expose themselves without worrying about it because they trust me.” Many directors 39 years ago and today would agree that all you need for good direction is the requisite trust. I did, too, when I heard the January replay of his interview on IPR. But after my conversation with Carrie Pozdol and introduction to the intimacy choreography movement, I realized that nowhere in this assertion is an explanation of how Bogdanovich earned his actors’ trust. In the early 2000s, a number of innovative women began creating techniques for more intentional and boundary-led “choreography” for stage and film scenes depicting intimate encounters. But their work didn’t really catch on, as the structures in place simply demanded unfettered trust from actors, subject to the whims of their director. That is, it didn’t catch on until the groundswell of #MeToo and Hollywood’s Time’s Up movement turned the public eye on the long overlooked, predatory nature of show business power brokers like Harvey Weinstein. As we are finally growing aware, too many directors have misused and abused all of this personalized (and unearned) trust. The founders and practitioners of intimacy choreography also believe the main job of a director is to create an environment for actors to feel free to take artistic and emotional risks with their work. But instead of Bogdanovich’s 50 February 2022 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV303
Jav Ducker / Little Village Kinky Boots, Theatre Cedar Rapids, opening Friday, Feb. 11, $27-57 See more of Carrie’s work! Mirrorbox Theatre Presents Cycle Play (dir. Carrie Pozdol), TCR Grandon Studio, Cedar Rapids, Opening Thursday, Feb. 17, $20
reliance on ex officio trust, the safe environment for actors to “expose themselves” is communally created using consent-based, boundary-led, concrete and learnable techniques whereby actors retain their physical and emotional autonomy.
Let’s look at three concrete takeaways from Pozdol’s work with the Kinky Boots cast: 1. Actors are led in exercises which establish and communicate their physical boundaries around touch from the outset. 2. Everyone is given and uses de-sexualized language for the actors’ movements. 3. Intimate moments between characters are choreographed and stay consistent, so everyone knows what to do and what to expect. That last one is so important, given the way these scenes have often been directed in the past. Pozdol characterizes the old, all-too-common technique as: “I don’t know, just make out and be really hot!” But doesn’t it make more practical sense to treat a passionate encounter as a
