Intimacy for Stage and Screen

The Fall 2024 application is now open! We review applications on a rolling basis, and we encourage you to apply as soon as you have gathered your application materials to be considered for the widest array of potential funding opportunities.

Time to completion: one year (16 credits)

Be the first to take advantage of the only college program of its kind in the nation! 

Columbia College Chicago’s new Intimacy for Stage and Screen Certificate program offers an in-depth, year-long education in coordination, choreography, and advocacy for theatrical intimacy and performance. 

This one-year, 16-credit graduate certificate will empower artists with industry best practices for the safe, ethical, inclusive, and effective staging of intimacy, nudity, and sexual violence for both stage and screen. This program is a rigorous examination of tested methodologies for Intimacy Coordination for TV and Cinema and Intimacy Choreography for Theatre. 

With this training, students working in a cohort of like-minded students will exhibit an understanding of methods for creating excellent, high-quality choreography and tools and techniques. Additionally, students will demonstrate knowledge and leadership so that a culture of consent becomes the norm in every production process while coordinating the logistical and administrative needs of a wide range of processes. 

The Intimacy for Stage and Screen Certificate is recommended for those who have experience in stage and screen performance, educational or professional. Actors, directors, dancers, choreographers, and mental health professionals are encouraged to apply. Because classes are offered in the evenings or with online components, you'll have the flexibility to continue your day job and other passions. 

Quick Links

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In the Classroom

Our faculty members are working professionals and experts in film and stage performance with extensive experience in directing, coordinating, choreography, and more. Most importantly, they’re dedicated teachers, bringing their knowledge of best practices, tools, and techniques for effective performance intimacy into the classroom.

As a result of successfully completing program requirements, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate cultural competency by engaging in training and practical activities to support diversity, equity, and inclusion specific to the fields of Intimacy Choreography and Coordination;
• Exhibit comprehension of consent, power dynamics, and boundaries specific to the fields of theatre/live performance, cinema, and education, and practice techniques for mitigating and addressing those issues
• Utilize choreography and physical storytelling and acquire tools and techniques specific to coaching and crafting intimate scenes; 
• Demonstrate theatre/live performance specific processes, roles, power dynamics and hierarchies, collaborative methods, team structures, and procedures for working in the theatre/live performance industries; and
• Demonstrate an understanding of cinema and television specific processes, roles, power dynamics and hierarchies, collaborative methods, team structures, and procedures for working in the cinema/television industry.

Who might be interested in this certificate?

• Cinema, TV, Theatre Directors interested in Intimacy work
• Performers wishing to add Intimacy Coordination and Choreography or Consent and Boundaries work to their skill set
• Theatre Directors or Choreographers
• Dance Choreographers
• Dancers
• Stage Combat Choreographers
• Stunt Persons
• Persons involved in DEI work in other disciplines