.jpg)
Anastasia St. Amand’s work at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity this month is something of a return to her roots.
“Some of the first intimacy directing classes I took [were] actually here,” she laughs.
As the intimacy and fight coordinator, the Calgary-based St. Amand is one of the core parts of the creative team in the Banff Centre’s production of the operatic adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale, working with actors to ensure that they are safe and comfortable on and off the stage as they deal with intense moments of intimacy and violence.
St. Amand got her start in intimacy coordination back in 2017, a time when the role was still relatively new in theatre circles. She notes that having someone to be an advocate and interlocutor for actors and crew members alike helps to act as a guardrail for the earnestness and energy that stage performers have.
“In opera and theatre and ballet, we’re very much taught a ‘yes and’ attitude,” St. Amand observes. “That’s a classic way of doing things. Unlearning that was really good, and then figuring out how to foster honesty and non-coercive relationships in my work was a really beneficial thing to do.”
The work of the intimacy coordinator varies from production to production, genre to genre. St. Amand notes that work gets down to an even more micro level when it comes to working with individuals. “The individuals that we’re working with, safety itself is an individual as they are,” she explains. “No one person has the same idea, the same sensation, the same feeling of safety. The biggest part of my work is balancing the power dynamics, filtering my work to fit into the rhythm or the style of the room.”
The challenge of fitting into the rehearsal room for The Handmaid’s Tale is larger than usual for St. Amand as it is her first opera production. The classic story by Margaret Atwood involves plenty of disturbing dystopian content that performers have to deal with on almost a daily basis in the weeks leading up to the performance. Some of the tools that St. Amand has employed in this production to help performers is to set up intake calls before the show even began rehearsal to talk through performer’s comfort levels., and to ensure that physical needs can be accommodated.
“I try and front-load as much information as possible so that folks can have... these self-care practices that work for them,” says St. Amand. “The Banff Centre is really great, too, because they have a whole department called Participant Services, and the lovely folks there have been supporting me as I support [the cast].”
For those who are interested in pursuing intimacy coordination as an element of their artistry, St. Amand encourages visits to IDC (Intimacy Director and Coordinator) Professionals or Principal Intimacy Professionals to learn more about training and certification.