Dr. Èmil Haarhoff

Dr. Èmil Haarhoff is a qualified SAG-AFTRA registry Intimacy Coordinator and IC trainer, freelance actor, director, choreographer and part-time lecturer. He trained as an Intimacy Practitioner through Intimacy Directors International (IDI) in the USA. He has a specific interest in choreography and design, bodyminded (whole-body) consent and creating strategies to ensure the safety of minors during intimacy on stage and screen. He trained (and co-designed training modules for) IC's globally.

He completed his Ph.D. in Drama through the University of Pretoria, devising strategies to facilitate subjective actor discomforts, traumas and apprehensions during performance. He also completed his Master's Degree in Musical Theatre through the Tshwane University of Technology, with specific focus on skills-based Dramatic Arts training in secondary education. Èmil is also a Laban Certified Movement Analysis (CMA) through the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies (LIMS) in New York.

He has been directing, choreographing and devising theatre for young performers (ages 13-19) since 2011. He has implemented and designed various intimate scenes for young actors in multiple touring youth productions. Through the need to safely tell vulnerable teenage stories he leaned into designing specific strategies of consent and safety for the young actor.