Creating a culture of consent where intimate stories can be told with agency and artistry.
Description
Intimacy on stage has an astonishing wide scope including chemistry, qualities of touch, tension, relationships, childbirth, breast-feeding, sex, and sexual violence. This wide array of intimate storytelling is best supported through some foundational practices. This workshop introduces the theatre professional to the prime tenets behind theatrical intimacy and offers an active understanding of consent-based practices: a root philosophy, vocabulary, and potent staging techniques. Staging intimacy can feel uncomfortable and bodies carry a world of histories that get bumped into when dealing with sensitive material. This workshop helps the artist engage with intimate content in sustainable ways, resulting in more exciting, moving, and powerful performances. Learn the tools that will help create a more generous environment where artists feel respected, confident, and creatively engaged, while uplifting their agency, and honouring their personal boundaries.
Brave spaces lead to brave performances.
Topics will include:
Introduction to Intimacy Direction: the essential pillars that outline the practice and its rigour.
Deep-listening and agency exercises: taking time and space to be in relationship with breath and body, while learning boundary and consent-based practices
Choreography: playing with dynamic, body, and gesture to create instant chemistry
Kissing: masking and how to working with placeholders to keep the investigation and drive going in a scene.
Possessionality: clarifying and building nuance and depth of relationship
Self-care and closure practices
Stage-management, documentation, and Intimacy Captains: how to keep the work consistent and safe
CAEA: Rules and regulations regarding auditions, callbacks, contracts, and riders.
A NOTE: This workshop will engage in physical contact. All touching is consensual and participants are always invited to sit out and watch should they feel activated or triggered. While the goal is to explore emotional and physical intimacy, the key objective is to teach consent and agency.
Bio
Alix Sideris (she/they) is an actor, movement and intimacy professional, writer, director, educator, and meditation leader. She is a proud mentor to many emerging artists.
As an Intimacy Professional, Alix specializes in scenes involving nudity, simulated sex, and intimacy in theatre, film, and television. She creates a respectful and confident space for performers while supporting the creative vision of the director. She’s a movement coach/choreographer, a conduit and mediator between actors and production, and advocates for mental/physical health and safety. It is in her heart’s mandate to help everyone feel grounded with sensitive material so that the strongest stories can be shared with holistic artfulness.
Some recent Intimacy Professional credits: Rent, Much Ado About Nothing, Wedding Band, Hamlet (Stratford Festival); All the Lost Ones (Netflix); Gwen Shamblin: Starving for Salvation (Lifetime); Happily Undead After (Canadian Film Centre); Fat Lady Sriracha (Sriracha Productions); Sin and Sorrow are Common to All, The Judas Kiss (Talk is Free Theatre); Salome Learns to Dance (7 Veils Prod.); Pomegranate Opera (Buddies in Bad Times), The Seagull (Waterloo University), Let it Enfold You, Lunch (UofT), Yellow Wallpaper, Trials of a Ladies Man (Brock U).
Alix is on the board of the National Society of Intimacy Professionals and teaches Intimacy and Consent workshops and classes upon request.
Her over 200 hours of present and on-going training includes a commitment to Cultural Sensitivity/Implicit Bias training; Anti-Racism/Anti-Oppression training; and Supporting Trans Actors and Creatives.
For a view of Alix's performing and various directing credits visit her website: alixsideris.com