StateraArts members come from all over the USA and all genres of art-making. They are educators, arts leaders, activists, content-creators, professional artists, early career, mid-career, patrons, and community organizers. The Statera Member Spotlight is just one way StateraArts uplifts and amplifies the voices of our members. Today, we’d like to introduce you to Tonia Sina.
StateraArts: What organizations are you affiliated with?
Tonia Sina: I am the Executive Director and a leading consultant of Intimacy Directors International.
SA: What is your occupation or calling in the arts?
TS: I am an Intimacy Director, a choreographer, a workshop teacher and a performer.
SA: Tell us about your favorite project you've done thus far.
TS: The work I do with Intimacy Direction is at the front of my career, and it’s what I spend the majority of my time on. I was the first Intimacy Choreographer and coined the phrase in my masters thesis. So that’s been main focus since 2003. It’s my favorite.
SA: What inspires your work most?
TS: I would say my team. The team I work with at IDI is incredibly important to the work I do. They inspire me to keep going. I am also motivated by my experience having a rare chronic disease and disability called AHUS. I’m waiting on my third kidney transplant currently and have been on dialysis for two years. I’ve only known my adult life with this illness, so its made me incredibly ambitious and focused. When IDI was first coming about, I really struggled trying to survive while starting a movement. You don’t know how much time you have, so you have to do everything now.
I've been on this roller coaster for over 20 years. There are some years where I can't do very much and other years when I can do more. I am trying my best to take advantage of when I can do more. Other times I have to live moment to moment and breath to breath. I really had to learn how to balance if I wanted to survive and accomplish my mission.
SA: Why did you become a STATERA member?
TS: I have been really interested in STATERA for the longest time. I wanted to get more involved because I believe our missions are really aligned. My colleague did a presentation at your conference in Milwaukee last year and had a wonderful experience. I'm repeatedly told that we have to get in touch and collaborate! Doug Scholz-Carlson from Great River Shakespeare Festival had me teach a workshop for them a while ago, and shortly after had STATERA do a workshop as well. He later told me about the things he learned in regards to racial bias, gender parity, and thriving with intimacy design, and expressed that the two workshops were like a "one-two-punch". He felt they were absolutely life changing for his company. I love that we’ve already collaborated on some level, and now I’m just excited to be more involved!
SA: What do you love most about your artistic community?
TS: With my community of Intimacy Directors I love that everyone involved has an overwhelming desire to make the industry safer and better. We all have a real interest in shining flashlights into dark corners and helping the truth come to light about how we’ve treated each other in this industry. We have to make change if we want the abuse and harassment that we've been supporting for years to stop. They're all so dedicated to that mission. Enough is enough. We know there is a better way. There is still a lot of resistance to having intimacy directors in the room and debate on whether or not its even necessary. People still struggle to know what it is that we do. We are also spread out across the world, which is both challenging and invigorating. We have zoom chats to share our experiences and the sense of community helps us know we aren't alone in this fight. For 10 years I was the only Intimacy Director in the world! Having an army behind me has completely changed the tune of what it all means.
As soon as Not in Our House came about in Chicago I told my team to buckle up! Once the stories started coming out it was like a flood. No one was talking publicly for years and years and then it was this landslide of information. Our phones started ringing off of the hook after the 2016 election and then even more after the scandal with Profiles Theatre. It’s been insane, but very exciting.
SA: When did you feel most supported or championed by the women in your life?
TS: I think I have felt supported by the women in my life since I ran into Alicia Rodus, my Co-Founder. She and I are still working together to formulate what we are and what we want to become. IDI grew so fast that now we have to restructure to handle the demands. At one point it was only two or three of us handling dozens of inquiries. The women in my organization have always been the front runners of the work we do. The men haven’t wanted to be the face of the organization and expressed early on how they wanted the non-men to take a lead in this, which I think was a real show of the integrity on our team. We frequently ask ourselves and evaluate who should be the face of this movement. And it’s the victims of abuse that helped formulate our protocol, The Pillars, the most.
SA: Any upcoming projects you'd like to share with us?
TS: I am the first Intimacy Director for Chicago Lyric Opera! Which is a big deal because Opera is really just now taking on Intimacy Directors. I'll be working on Dead Man Walking which goes up in November and then I start work on two shows at Steppenwolf.
SA: Tell us about another woman or non-binary artist who inspires your work.
TS: I am greatly inspired by Anne Bogart. I have been an admirer of her work for a long time. I have read all of her books, use a lot of her techniques, and love her point of view and how she sees art. A Director Prepares is one of my bibles. She’s pretty prominent in the work that I do. Lots of women in the stage combat and stunt world inspire me as well. K. Jenny Jones was the first female fight master. She fought a lot of battles in a male-dominated industry and I feel like I am taking up the baton after her with a lot of other women. Whenever I am teaching women older than me in workshops, they tell me things I cannot fathom. I so admire what they had to put up with and be quiet about just to get by.
Simply put, I'm just really excited about the future of intimacy direction. It went from 0 to 100 in just 15 years, and I can't wait to see where we go next.
About Tonia
Tonia Sina (she/her) is the Executive Director and Founder of Intimacy Directors International. She has choreographed intimacy for the Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada, as well as Chicago Lyric Opera among other companies, and will be choreographing for Steppenwolf in November. She is an international sexual harassment prevention advisor for theatre, opera, and film. Recently featured in the NY Times, LA Times, Huffington Post, Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, American Theatre Magazine, CBC Radio and hundreds of other publications, podcasts, and radio shows, she is an international Intimacy for the Stage workshop teacher and choreographer. Tonia has been advocating for safe practices in Intimacy for the Stage since she began research as the first Intimacy Choreographer and coined the phrase for her thesis in 2004.
Originally an actress, fight director, and movement teacher, Tonia now advises Universities on their curricula to help prevent harassment and abuse in academia.
Tonia invented her own method, Intimacy for the Stage, which later was translated into the Pillars, which IDI now uses to set the industry standard for Intimacy Direction.
Also a director, playwright, model, and performer, Tonia is a soon to be triple kidney transplant recipient and rare and chronic disease patient advocate and national motivational speaker. She attended Niagara University for her BFA in theatre performance, and Virginia Commonwealth University where she earned her MFA in Movement Pedagogy with a specialty in Intimacy.