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An Intimacy Coordinator? What’s that? We won’t be surprised if this term threw you off a bit. Well, the designation and the work profile didn’t exist in India till last year! But then, 26-year-old Aastha Khanna, who has been an assistant director on a couple of films earlier, decided to become India’s first Intimacy Coordinator and help directors translate their vision of an intimate scene on screen, keeping in mind the actors’ safety and comfort.

What does an Intimacy Coordinator do?

In a nutshell, an Intimacy Coordinator helps choreograph any scene that involves any kind of intimacy, sexual violence, nudity, or simulated sex. The work requires the Intimacy Coordinator to make sure that safety is of paramount importance and the actors are comfortable. Some tools are also used while choreographing such scenes that work as barriers between two people in order to make sure that no form of the genital area is touching the other if there is a scene of simulated sex. Besides that, Intimacy Coordinators also get actors to use modesty garments that are used in case of shooting any form of nudity.

“We use them to cover different parts of the body. They will be like a strapless bra and there is also strapless underwear, which is like C-shaped underwear. There are nipple pasties that cover the breast area. Then there is Tuck it, which is like an adhesive body tape that covers the genital regions without any strap around the side of the body,” reveals Aastha.

How did this profession become popular?

In the West, the first time an Intimacy Coordinator was hired for the screen was in 2018 when Alicia Rodis was hired for the second season of a show called The Deuce because Emily Meade, the actor on the show, asked for that support. Since then, while a number of Intimacy Coordinators have come up in the West, there are very few in other parts of the world. There is one in Singapore and 2 in Japan, 1 in Israel, and now 1 in India.

How can one become an Intimacy Coordinator?

Aastha talks about the certification program she undertook to become an Intimacy Coordinator. The program is affiliated and accredited by SAG-AFTRA, which is the actors union in the US and the institute’s name is Intimacy Professionals Association (IPA). It was founded by Intimacy Coordinator Amanda Blumenthal. Another certifying body is Alicia Rodis’ Intimacy Director and Coordinators, which is based out of New York. There are two other certifying bodies in Europe. One is Intimacy for Stage and Screen and the other is Intimacy on Set.

Challenges of the job?

For Aastha, working on scenes that involve sexual violence is extremely hard. “This requires to hold a brave face and facilitate an environment where clear communication is happening at all points of time… thorough breaking down of every movement, every single aspect, the place, the choreography, the rehearsal and it has to be clearly talked out in a scene of any kind of sexual violence because we are dealing with a situation that can trigger somebody even in the slightest manner and can affect the performers and even the crew that is watching. One can’t forget the people that are working on the set will have to witness the scene too. For me, in general, I find it most difficult because I have to take care of myself through it too,” reveals Aastha.

Does India have any mandates for Intimacy Coordinators?

Aastha shares that there aren’t any mandates in India yet. But she is working on some guidelines to at least create a set of policies and best practices that can be used to navigate scenes of intimacy. “And that work is actually well underway with the collective that I have created where we are authoring a set of guidelines that will help us do that to sort of help any intimacy professional better their tools to navigate scenes of intimacy and hold up brave spaces as much they can,” said the Kolkata born.

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Timesnow

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