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Touch is therefore perceived in: 
that individual haze through which we perceive the world. This haze  
contains confused forms of privileged relations, which are not at all  
‘unconscious’, a relation to sexuality, and of which we know unquestionably 
that they are seedy, that they have a relation to sexuality, without explicitly 
evoking that relation. (Merleau-Ponty 2012: 172)  
This means that in approaching intimate performer training “it’s imperative that the 
directors and the intimacy team are addressing not only the norms and  
expectations of the actors, but also of the characters” as this varies within cultures 
and companies and therefore protects persons from fetishisation (Haney 2024: 
41). The media’s influence suggests that each gender and sexuality conduct inti-
macy alike when in reality “it is dangerous to assume that identity doesn’t impact 
the ways in which folks express intimacy” (Haney 2024: 17). Contact Improvisation 
is a practice where touch isn’t necessarily emotional or “story” telling. It is used 
as a source of self-attention; the awareness in each moment to be guided by the 
touch of another, distributing the weight and balance to be both active and pas-
sive, submitting or holding the placement for each movement to flow to the next. 
 
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