Kim Shively (Performing Arts) earns promotion and launches innovative training in best practices for boundaries and consent when working with minors in theatre and film.
Theatrical Intimacy Education (TIE) is the nation’s preeminent research and educational organization promoting the best practices for boundaries, consent, and staging intimacy for stage and screen. Assistant Professor of Performing Arts Kim Shively joined TIE in 2018 as assistant faculty and began training students, educators, and professionals throughout the country in theatrical intimacy best practices. Shively has also worked as an intimacy choreographer for several productions at universities including Elon, North Carolina School for the Arts and Chapman University.
In 2020, Shively was promoted to associate faculty with TIE, a designation earned by her excellence in teaching, intimacy choreography, and publications. Shively has co-authored her research on bringing theatrical intimacy practices into undergraduate environments with Elon colleague, collaborator and affiliate faculty of TIE Susanne Shawyer, an associate professor of theatre. Their article “Education in Theatrical Intimacy as Ethical Practice for University Theatre” was published in the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism in the Fall of 2019. That fall their research was also included in the journal Perspectives on Undergraduate Research & Mentoring in an article titled “Mentoring Undergraduate Research in the Performing Arts: Case Studies of the Ten Salient Practices in Action.” Shively included her research in best practices of boundaries and consent in the acting classroom in the book Applied Meisner for the 21st Century Actor (Routledge 2021), which she co-authored with Kevin Otos, associate professor of theatre at Elon. Shively is also an experienced theatrical intimacy educator, having taught numerous workshops on the topic since 2018.
In addition to her scholarship on best practices of boundaries and consent, Shively researched how to translate these best practices when working with minors. She developed her research into a six-hour training for TIE. Since January 2021, when Shively first offered her six-hour workshop on working with minors, she has trained over 150 educators, actors, and professionals from across the globe in these techniques.
As an associate faculty member, Shively continues to work as an educator and consultant with TIE, where she hopes her research will shape the future of the entertainment industry for the better.