PERFORMING INTIMACY | intimacy coordination for film, tv & theater

Intimacy Coordination Athens Greece Europe

Intimacy in Film, Television & Theater

A Powerful Storytelling Medium

GEORGIA PAIZI

LINKS ⫸ resourses & professional network

A LITTLE HISTORY

Intimacy in film, television, and theater powerfully captures the connection, vulnerability, and authenticity of characters, creating a deep bond between the audience and the story. It explores themes like passion, love, desire, disappointment, violence, trauma, and healing. For many years, intimate scenes were left for actors and directors to handle on their own, often leading to uncomfortable situations, misunderstandings, and breaches of consent. In some cases, this lack of guidance resulted in traumatic incidents, power exploitation, and abuse, impacting the artistic community as a whole.

The rising demand for specialized expertise drove pioneers in intimacy—many of whom were self-taught choreographers with backgrounds in stage combat—to document their skills and establish protocols for safe coordination of intimate scenes. This collective effort led to the formation of the first formal training programs, with support from SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists). In early 2020, the organization Intimacy Coordinators & Directors (IDC) introduced the first standards for training, working, and supervising professionals in the field. Today, IDC members work on major streaming platforms such as HBO, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Netflix, and even on Broadway. IDC is internationally recognized for its inclusivity, camaraderie, and dedication to constantly improving and updating its educational programs.

WHAT DO INTIMACY COORDINATORS DO

Intimacy coordinators are specially trained choreographers who collaborate with the creative teams on set and in rehearsal, ensuring the safe and authentic portrayal of eroticism, sex, and intimacy in the performing and visual arts. We contribute to setting new standards in work and training, elevating intimacy to a dynamic storytelling medium that not only shifts the conditions of the creative process but also produces powerful, thrilling, inclusive, raw, uncomfortable, funny, and haunting moments for stage and screen.

Today, institutions like the Royal Shakespeare Company, Schaubühne Berlin, and the Comédie-Française have in-house intimacy coordinators on staff, while in tv & cinema, some of the most compelling examples of intimacy scenes, produced with the guidance of this pioneering field are: Orange is the New Black (2013-2019), Big Little Lies (2017-2019), The Handmaid’s Tale (2017-), The Deuce (2017-2019), Succession (2018-), True Detective (2019), The Umbrella Academy (2019-), Euphoria (2019-), Sex Education (2019-), Little Fires Everywhere (2020), Promising Young Woman (2020), Bridgerton (2020-), I May Destroy You (2020), Normal People (2020), Scenes from a Marriage (2021), West Side Story (2021), and Poor Things (2023).

NEWS

⫸ Women in Film & Television 50/50 festival 2024

Georgia is facilitating a workshop on “Consent Forward Practices & Tools for the Audiovisual Production” at this year’s WIFT GR 50/50 Festival, and joins the panel discussion on “The Post-#MeToo Cinema Era: Outlining Challenges, Dynamics, and Bad & Good Practices” with Ariane Labed, Elina Psykou, Maria Louka, and Mary Kolonia. Check this year's program here.

⫸ Georgia Paizi, how is a safe intimate scene really filmed in the movies?

Read Georgia's interview to Christina Galanopoulou for the AthensVoice magazin here.

INTIMACY COORDINATOR

Georgia Paizi

Intimacy Coordination | Συντονίστρια Οικειότητας | Athens Greece EU | Αθήνα Ελλάδα Ευρώπη

GEORGIA PAIZI (she/her) is a bilingual (Greek/English) Intimacy Coordinator, movement teacher & funded choreographer (COCHLEA non-profit), born in Athens/Greece (1985). Georgia trained as an intimacy coordinator with the US-based Intimacy Directors & Coordinators Professionals —Consent Forward Artist (Level 1 & 2, 2022-2023), Accelerator Program (Phase 1, 2 & 3 2023-2024)— completing IDC's internationally renowned training course recognized by SAG-AFTRA.

Georgia is the first Greek performing arts professional, and one of the very few based in Southern Europe & the Balkans, to specialize as an intimacy coordinator. She has a background in dance & voice, and university degrees in theatre & social sciences, with studies across Greece, Europe, UK & the US (BA, PG, MA, vocational trainings). She is an ARTworks (SNF) fellow in choreography, (2021), a State Scholarship recepient, a Gill Clark Bursary and Trinity Laban awardee, while in 2023-24 Georgia was shortlisted for a British Council Alumni Award (Culture and Creativity) and a Fulbright Greek Arts Professionals Scholarship.

Having worked primarily as a choreographer & movement educator in Athens, London & Berlin -with additional experience as a performer in dance, film & theater, as well as assistant directing and producing- Georgia brings over 10 years of experience in working with actors & dancers in the performing arts industry & education to her role as an intimacy coordinator. Since 2020, Georgia curates COCHLEA studia and is the artistic director of international mid-career dance & movement course GUTS | EYES | BONES | BOUNDARIES. She has a extensive experience in pioneering movement pedagogies in Northen Europe & the US since the 1970s. She is a member of the Alexander Technique teachers' International, the Skinner Releasing Technique teachers' Network, the Greek Dance Union, and is a mother of two.

Georgia's approach to intimacy work is rooted in continuous education, high artistry and strong bonds to the collegial community. She works closely with a network of specialists whose embodied and professional expertise bring nuance and diversity to her work, in confidence that simulated sex and intimacy in film and performance are powerful storytelling elements that require detail, care and multidisciplinary craftswomanship.

⫸ Find Georgia's full cv here