Acacia DëQueer is a white nonbinary transgender disabled queer intimacy coordinator and director, author, filmmaker, educator, inventor, and multidisciplinary artist. Faer body of work explores intersectional topics including gender, sexuality, disability, mental health, and identity through and in the arts.
As an intimacy professional, Acacia has coordinated award winning films such as Perfectly Good Moment which won Special Mention Best Foreign Feature at the Unrestricted View Film Festival (2023) and Best Drama Actor and Best Cinematography at the West Sound Film Festival (2023) and As You Are which won U.S. Narrative Short Special Mention at OutFest (2023), the New Talent Award at the National Film Festival for Talented Youth (2023), and the Colin Higgins Youth Filmmaker Grant at Frameline47 (2023). The films fae’ve intimacy coordinated have been official selections at over 30 festivals internationally including some of the top LGBTQIA+ festivals such as NewFest, Inside Out Toronto, Outfest LA, and Wicked Queer. Overall, they have served as the intimacy professional on 14 films including Friend of Sophia, As The Winter Turns to Fall, Kissing Kerouac, and Apophenia. On stage, Acacia intimacy directed Spring Awakening at the University of Michigan in the Fall of 2022.
As an innovator, researcher, and author in the field of intimacy coordination and direction, Acacia has lectured repeatedly on intimacy for both screen and stage at multiple colleges and universities including the Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema, Marymount Manhattan College, and Vassar College. Acacia published The 2022 Intimacy Professionals Census Review: Identifying Growing Pains in a Rapidly Expanding Field in the peer-reviewed Journal of Consent-Based Performance with their co-author Kristina Valentine. Currently one of faer essays, Elements of a Nudity Rider, is being translated for publication at the Aleksander Zelwerowicz’s Theater Academy in Warsaw, Poland. Fae have also served as a Committee Member for the NSIP IDEA Committee and the Marketing + Outreach Committee where they help to prioritize accessibility within the organization since 2022.
Faer success as an intimacy professional stems from their mixed educational and work background in the humanities, humans rights, and the arts. Acacia received faer BA in International Studies from Vassar College in 2019 with an emphasis in Women and Queer studies and de-colonial History and a minor in Film. They also completed the SIT International Honors Program, Human Rights: Foundations, Challenges, and Advocacy where fae studied issues including human trafficking, women’s rights, refugee rights, indigenous rights, & LGBTQIA+ rights in a multicultural context through visits with NGOs, indigenous groups, and local advocacy groups in Nepal, Jordan, and Chile. Since graduating, they have studies with intimacy organizations from around the world including Intimacy Directors and Coordinators, Intimacy for Stage and Screen, Theatrical Intimacy Education, The National Society of Intimacy Professionals, and Moving Body Arts. Currently, they are earning a duel certification in intimacy coordination and direction through the SAG•AFTRA accredited launchpad training program at Principal Intimacy Professionals. In addition, fae are currently earning their 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training certification through Tiny Buddha Yoga in Ann Arbor, MI to deepen their knowledge of coaching and performing movement and breathwork.
Professionally, Acacia has worked in a variety of roles including accessibility advocate, trans consultant, consent actor-educator, sound mixer, production designer, production assistant, and nanny. They have also held a variety of non-professional artistic and educational roles including burlesque dancer and choreographer, swing and ballroom dancing teacher, and actor.
Fae frequently work in the film industry in the unceded lands of the Wappinger, Canarsie, Schaghticoke, Matinecock, Munsee Lenape, and Lekawe (Rockaway) peoples colonially known as New York City where they lived before moving with their partner Ana and dog Zuko to the unceded lands of the Meškwahkiašahina, Peoria, Anishinabewaki, and Bodwéwadmi (Patawatomi) peoples colonially known as Ann Arbor, Michigan.
