Jan 9, 2019
Tonia is the founder, executive director, and head of pedagogy of Intimacy Directors International. She is an international sexual harassment prevention advisor for theatre and film, and an international “Intimacy for the Stage” workshop teacher and choreographer. Tonia has been researching intimacy for the stage and sexual harassment in the industry since she began research for her thesis in 2004. She has been featured in many publications and interviews.
Tonia was originally an actress, fight director, and movement teacher, and spent eight years in academia as a movement professor. She is the former artistic director of Reduxion Theatre Company in Oklahoma City. Tonia advises universities on their curricula to help avoid harassment and abuse in academia.
Tonia continues to write, publish, and teach on this topic internationally. She invented her own method, Intimacy for the Stage, and teaches it internationally, but is also very interested in teaching and providing other methods of safe practice as well for stage and film.
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 for the Stage.