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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Nadia Khomami Arts and culture correspondent

Royal Opera House hires intimacy coordinator for sex scenes

Ita O'Brien, British movement director and intimacy co-ordinator for film, TV and theatre poses for a photograph at her home, Cranbrook, southeast England.
Ita O'Brien: ‘There’s consent each and every day … So you explore what the moment is about, different ways to tell the same story,” Photograph: Glyn Kirk/AFP/Getty Images

Love, power, agony and death – throughout its history opera has been cherished for its displays of unbridled passion. But for those enacting scenes of murder, sex and sometimes even rape, words like consent and agency have rarely come up.

Now, in what’s thought to be a British first, the Royal Opera House (ROH) is consulting with Ita O’Brien – an intimacy coordinator who ensures actors feel comfortable during such scenes – for Katie Mitchell’s new production of Theodora, opening on Monday.

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