My Journey as a Cultural Specialist
I feel the best way to explain what a Cultural Sensitivity Specialists is to share how I became interested in becoming one. I started as an Intimacy Professional for both stage and screen. I've been training since 2018 as one and began working at one in 2021. With the work I do there I realize part of how I analyze a script is looking at the world of the play (or film), and the culture in which the characters live in. How does this impact their relationships to the intimacy. Another part of what I do involved the Actors.
I don't ever ask straight forward questions about their identities or their lived experiences. They're not my business. What I do ask about is their boundaries. I remind them they are allowed to have separate, aka professional boundaries for this specific project. They are not obligated or expected to share or bring anything personal with them in the space. However, I know there's no way to shake them. They go with us everywhere. They in some way influence our professional boundaries, values, and choices.
What drew me to the work as a Cultural Sensitivity Specialist is it opens up for being a supportive person in the room when intimacy is not a part of the production. Intimacy Professionals, also known as Intimacy Directors, Choreographers, and Coordinators are specifically trained and brought in for moments that involve sexually related choreography.
About Cultural Sensitivity Specialists
As a Cultural Sensitivity Specialist I have a broader scope. I, and others who are trained for this position, each bring with us a variety of backgrounds, knowledge, and specialties to support Actors who may be working on productions with loaded topics.
We are not there to police people or control the production. We are there to focus on supporting the Actors, but also the production team. We ar there to help take the pressure of the power dynamics that weigh heavily in the space between Actor and Director.
Directors have a lot of power and responsibility on their shoulders. Even if they are well versed and supportive of their entire team. Directors have a lot of moving parts happening at the same time and may not always have time or the abilities to add on something like this which is crucial for the Actors to have. Plus, we work in a business that is temporary.
Everyone in this industry works from job-to-job. Actors have for a very long time now been molded into this idea that to be a 'good Actor' means you can be a 'working Actor.' In order to achieve being a 'good Actor' means you are not a problem to work with. This can push many Actors to compromise on their boundaries and values in order to please the powers that be so they can continue to work in this industry.
Bringing in a Cultural Sensitivity Specialist takes this pressure off of the Actors. It allows them a person on the production team that is there to advocate, listen, and support them. The CSS is also there to support the Director's vision. We can help navigate conversations, offer deloaded language, alternative ideas that support their visions and their boundaries. A CSS also offers derolling practices for the entire team so that they can do the work, but be able to return to their own lives.
We are not there to make the work perfect. We are there to make the work better and sustainable. We are there to support the art and the production. We are not Human Resources (HR). When problems begin to move outside of the artistry of the production, then we may advise they be taken to HR to handle them.
Right now this, like Intimacy, is a new and growing field. It's finding its way. It can cover a great deal of topics. That's why it's important when considering hiring a Cultural Sensitivity Specialist you know what your production will need and if this person has the tools to support it.
Let's make art better, not harder.
* * * * *
Credit to Tavia Rivee Jefferson and Ann C. James for the beginning of Cultural Coordinators and Cultural Sensitivity Specialists in theatre.