Matthew Patrick Denney

(AI) Artificial Intimacy: AI-Guided Intimacy Choreography for Performance

Artificial Intimacy is a rapid, interdisciplinary research-creation project
exploring how AI-generated directions and staging notes can guide performers in
choreographing moments of staged intimacy, which has traditionally been one of the most
challenging parts of Theatrical Intimacy Directors.

Using generative AI to produce movement and emotional directions, actors will interpret and
embody these prompts, culminating in a series of photographs that capture the tension and
harmony between human interpretation and algorithmic suggestion. This work probes the
ethical, aesthetic, and collaborative potentials of AI in performance direction and intimacy
choreography.

Matthew is a certified Intimacy Director and the co-founder of Consent Creatives of Arizona, which is a
collective of intimacy professionals who partner with local theatres and films to stage,
choreograph, and consult on scenes of loaded or heightened intimacy. This work has now
expanded to include mental health training, movement training, and body liberation training.
One of the most challenging parts of training to be an intimacy professional is the lack of
shadow opportunities to see how those who are doing it professionally communicate moments
of intimacy, and there is no archive of “great intimate staged positions” like how there is for
fight choreography. As we grow the field, we must adapt and see the holes in our own industry,
one of which is lack of training opportunities and the visibility of staged intimacy.

As a PhD student in Higher Education, part of the research that Matthew is doing is based on Theatre
for Social Change, and finding ways of making the theatre industry better through ethical and
fair practices. Such practices like hiring Intimacy Directors, Accountability Professionals, and
actual Human Resources Departments or Liaisons. This project aligns with that goal of that research 
in the future, and helps not only build Matthew's own personal portfolio, but also a field that is 
“newer” to the industry, and not as well-respected, as there are only 10 Intimacy Professionals in 
Arizona, with a lack of training for more.