At just under 30 minutes long, Touché follows the journey of two young men whose worlds crash into each other. Like a butterfly’s metamorphosis, Rudd’s piece spans the stages of a gay man’s journey to self-acceptance—from piercing uncertainty to uncomfortable encounters to peace within own’s skin. I ask Royal if he found a specific moment of the dance the most impactful. “There’s an in-between moment without any dancing. It’s between the first and second movement, [when] my character first discovers that he’s not alone in this, and that there’s this other person who has been on this whole other journey. It’s in this silent and still moment where we’re shedding our layers, the baggage that we once had, and we are standing face to face, not sure what the future holds. But there’s this feeling of hope and what things could be. And that moment, for me, just it says it all.”

Without giving too much of the piece away, there’s a kiss—the first ABT-commissioned kiss between two men. And to treat this production as Hollywood and Broadway might, an intimacy director, Sarah Lozoff, was brought onboard.

“I always requested communication with my artists, but the culture of dance tells us literally to keep our mouths shut. It is an art form in which language is not required, so dancers are trained to not speak,” says Rudd. “[Sarah and I] devised a plan to use intimacy direction to start making cultural shifts in dance, especially when the works are controversial and go deeply into a subject matter that the artists themselves had to deal with in life.”

For Lozoff, intimacy direction is not just about increasing the believability of kissing or simulated sex scene between characters. “It’s also about taking care of artists to make sure that they know they have agency, that their voices matter,” she says.

As Royal tells me, he feels seen and heard and he’s aware of the significance of it all. Of being partnered with another man, he says, I‘ve always hoped for this, [but] I didn‘t think that it would happen so soon.”

It’s happening tonight. Rudd says he’ll be watching it like “a candidate for office watching the numbers come in…I did all I could to make it worthwhile and valid and as meaningful as I could. Now the voters have to vote and the people have to accept it.” As for Royal, he says he’s “excited to see the final product, but I know that the experience alone was so fulfilling for me. Watching the ballet is just the cherry on top.”

Watch Touché tonight on ABT’s YouTube page.