A Violent Dance of Loss and Love: Poltergeist and Queer Intimacy Choreography

Poltergeist spoke to me as a project; the script is a beautifully poetic reflection of queer culture and the phantasm of loss in our lives.

We produced this show with an entire cast of queer-identified folx, and our production team was similarly representative. How often does that happen in our world? How often does this happen on college campuses? Soon, I hope this will be the case more often; for now, I am grateful for the university’s support in producing this show, as well as Alika’s efforts in writing and developing this script with us.

Working in tandem with the playwright was a lovely opportunity that carried with it the weight of knowing whether or not your staging was living up to the author’s expectations and imagination.  

Thankfully, I did. Alika insisted that my intimacy choreography brought his poetic stage directions to life, creating scenes that his stage directions poeticize as “a violent dance of loss and love”. And throughout the process of bringing this dance off the page and into the rhythms of the real world, our performers felt supported.

Using the IDI pillars and TIE techniques that I have learned, we created a rehearsal space in which each performer felt supported enough to be brave and bare themselves—both literally and metaphorically. Crafting intimacy choreography with undergraduate students for the first time, as well as with trans performers for the first time, I was beholden to their learning process as individuals and as actors, as well as to their safety within the space. My sole focus was creating a supported environment in which these student artists could grow, create, and learn both as humans and as artists. After taking steps to establish such a supportive environment, I was honored when our actors were honest with me and with one another about their personal boundaries and changing comfort levels, allowing us to progress together with cohesion.

And they did so without a budget.