Blog
Teaching and intimacy 1
“So you want us to be intimate.” Those words could have been a question, but a student in my performance art class had stated them. He knew more clearly than I had one of my intentions for the semester: in their performances and in our conversations about them, I wanted all of us to be open, generous, vulnerable, genuine, emotionally and intellectually truthful, and loving with one another–intimate. That diverges from the usual studio critique, which students and teachers often praise with the word tough.
I felt my classmates’ excitement underneath the nervousness of their quiet laughter, and I remember that I paused a few instants before responding because the acuteness of the student’s perception had taken me aback, and he had so sensitively articulated my own desire. I smiled and said, with tentativeness giving way entirely to delighted surprise, “Yes, I guess so. I want us to be intimate.”
