She embarked on her Shibari path motivated by the sheer beauty and pleasure it offers. Akhsa’s career as a Shibari artist, educator, and professional dominatrix is defined by her commitment to providing a safe and inclusive space for those seeking to explore their desires and embrace their true selves. She strives to break down stigmas around BDSM and Shibari in Indonesia and provide credible, affordable sources of education in a realm she sees as underserved.

She does not see Shibari and BDSM as a “dark world.” Instead, her Shibari journey is a celebration of self-expression and a means to connect with others, with a focus on understanding and embracing authentic desires, and the complexities of the human experience from the body to the mind and soul.

She embarked on her Shibari path motivated by the sheer beauty and pleasure it offers. Akhsa’s career as a Shibari artist, educator, and professional dominatrix is defined by her commitment to providing a safe and inclusive space for those seeking to explore their desires and embrace their true selves. She strives to break down stigmas around BDSM and Shibari in Indonesia and provide credible, affordable sources of education in a realm she sees as underserved.

She does not see Shibari and BDSM as a “dark world.” Instead, her Shibari journey is a celebration of self-expression and a means to connect with others, with a focus on understanding and embracing authentic desires, and the complexities of the human experience from the body to the mind and soul.

Barkas (they/them) is a bondage educator, performance artist, and writer. Their main focus is the development of various forms of language outside and on the border of verbal communication. With an academic background in physics, mathematics, history, and philosophy, their exploration of possibilities within and around rope bondage includes embedding the practice of tying into a larger context and the deconstruction of those contexts. Their contribution to the bondage narrative includes the development of Ranboo – a highly dynamic way of tying, “The City of Kinbaku”- a pedagogical concept for teaching Kinbaku, and the interview metaphor – as explicated in their book “Archaeology of Personalities”. Aside from bondage, their research and work include studies about identity and sexuality in a broader sense. In October they co-organized the international conference “Queer Practices/Queer Embodiment”. Barkas is based in Vancouver, Canada.

Benoît Descordes is a nonbinary switch from Paris, France. She was lucky enough to begin her rope education in 2014 when various teachers started coming to Paris from all over the world which offered her a large technical skills, and a view on many different styles. Now, almost ten years later, her style is a kind of semenawa mixing playful predicaments and slow buildings of torturous ropes. Her comfort zone as a teacher is to go into deep geeky technical stuff, and sometimes dig into beyond ropes topics, like consent strategies, session dynamics, or the reasons we do what we do. For a few months, she now teaches with Noémie and together they both try to give space and time for the model perspective to be shared.

Caritia: lives in a queer, gender-fluid, BiPoC (assigned female at birth) body. Walking a path with invisible disabilities and the living challenges which accompany that life. Educator, creative and ongoing work in process, whose advocacy for establishing boundaries is as strong as the desire to love with truth and honesty. On a quiet mission to de-stigmatize difference and return power to each individual. Using the language of kink to the point of geeky excitement. Co-owner & co-founder of Karada House & OhYesPlease Berlin Germany

Ceci is a Berlin based queer, kinky and fat sexologist, kink activist, and rope nerd. They have been organizing rope events and teaching shibari since 2014, and a sex therapist since spring 2021. ​Ceci teaches Japanese inspired rope bondage, BDSM and sexuality from top, bottom and switch perspectives. Their goal is to create safer spaces for people to communicate through rope and kink.

Dasniya Sommer is a Berlin-based choreographer and (visual) artist who works in the range from performance to photography and video art, from Japanese Shibari to classical ballet. She examines movement and image from the perspective of the dancer.
For 15 years Dasniya has practiced Japanese Shibari/Bondage stretching performative aesthetic categories, making shibari accessible to a wider and intersectional community.
She tries to combine pure Japanese techniques (currently Akira Naka inspired) with an unconventional anarchic approach, often integrating objects or organic material into the process. 
Dasniya’s teaching is informed by her experience as a rigger and shibari model. Melting schools and philosophies from a great number of teachers such as Chanta Rose, Kamijoo Saki, Kasumi Hourai, Arisue Go, Akira Naka, Tamandua, Gestalta, and Norio Sugiura.
She regularly teaches at ‘Haus Sommer’ her studio in Uferhallen Kulturwerkstatt, and a.o. at ImPulsTanz Vienna, Lismore’s Queer-Community/Australia, and Braunschweig University of Art.

‘Sculpting or moving with ropes I deeply enjoy the handcrafting moment combined with sensual attention towards my partner or the bondage material. After some tying time when this fragile, auratic presence unfolds a kind of cruel, weird, and yet warm space opens in between.

Ivy (she/they): Ivy Limieux is a sWitchy Sadistic VoxFox, who joined the rope community in 2016. She believes that rope is as fluid and adaptable as the people who choose to participate and that every desire to learn should be met with the opportunity to do so. She has taught/performed for organizations such as Dark Odyssey, Obsidian_LA, Black Rose Education, and Kink.com. Ivy is the host of Kinky, Colorful, Conscious, a kinky POC roundtable, and co-host of Oakland’s bi-monthly POC play party, SOUL. Find her on IG and FL @ivylimieux.

hua hua (she/her) is an artist and Shibari teacher. She is the founder of Borderline Shibari, a platform dedicated to creating a mindful and conscious Shibari community. She began the first public rope art classes in Shanghai, and has held numerous workshops, performances and Shibari events across China. She is now based in Europe and continues to develop Borderline online and offline.

She believes that rope bondage is a practice of authenticity. To her, ropes build the bridge between two beings; between interior and exterior and between the elevated and the underground. In addition to her Shibari work, her art work also includes experimental nude photography, physical theatre, installations and she frequently collaborates with other artists to encourage cross-cultural integration. Her artwork is influenced by BDSM, just as her Shibari teaching derives techniques from other disciplines.

hua hua’s Shibari teaching style is centred around intention, expression and the emotional process of rope. Her work has been featured on various Shibari platforms such as Shibari Study and Queer Rope festival.

Nana’s teaching is balanced between both ends of the rope and focused on co-creating pleasure and fun. Nana is a member of the Helsinki Shibari organizing team, with a long experience in facilitating BDSM workshops both as a top and as a bottom. For years, tying has been their central means of self-expression and playing with power. Nana’s pedagogical background is in art education, and they strongly emphasize learning by doing and experiencing rope.

Noémie has been into ropes for 2 years now. She’s a switch but preferably gets tied up at the moment. She is mostly tied by my partner Benoit and cares a lot about highlighting the model perspective during classes, as they teach together. She also loves to show the type of ropes, play, and vulnerability they share together.

NIKOKBK (he/him) is a rope artist based in Lyon (France). It’s been 5 years since NIKO began to practice Shibari properly with the aim of personal renewal. From a need to learn to let go of the taste for artistic expression, NIKO appropriated Shibari to express himself. He shares this path with RAPH (he/him/they/them) and for the last 4 years, they have formed a duet that has naturally evolved from learning together in many workshops in Europe to performing and teaching. NIKO’s love of live performance and the constraints of this environment have led him to develop a fast, efficient style. Liking to get out of his comfort zone, he works with different materials to add textures of his scenes.

RAPH has been practicing shibari as a switch for over 4 years in Lyon, France. He sees this art form as an inexhaustible source of exchange, play, and connection. With the daily integration of yoga and dance practice, he made it part of a global approach to body exploration. With NIKO as a rope partner for the past 4 years, they formed a duet that has led them to learn, teach, and perform.

René de Sans is a Berlin based, visual artist with a focus on photography and film. Her primary artist interest lies on the exploration of human bodies as visual, visceral and psychological landscapes, that express, incarnate, question and deconstruct ideas of identity, gender sexuality and taboo.

René first came into contact with rope in 2013 while modeling for private lessons and started to develop tying skills with self-tying. Eventually she also started to tie others and finds herself comfortable on all sides of the ropes.

Roo is a rope switch with a background in bodywork from art modeling to contact sports. They have a strong passion for community organizing and collective growth. Roo enjoys playing with self-suspension and working with and against gravity in ropes. In rope education, they focus especially on skills and perspectives related to bottoming.

Sophia is an artist, facilitator, and educator based in London, and Sophia has been exploring rope bondage and BDSM since 2013. Their interests and passions lie in thinking about what’s beneath the surface. Sophia is interested in exploring different practices that support us in making sense of what it means to be human, to connect to oneself and each other.

Violet Bights(she/her) is a femme rope switch from Western Massachusetts. She has a passion for playing with pain, tenderness, and raw vulnerability through rope bondage. While not in rope, Violet works in the mental health field as a therapist with fellow queer and neurodivergent folks, with a focus on health at every size and weight neutrality. For fun, you can find her geeking out about the ritual of negotiation and building systems of community care and organizing local events.

Yada is a student of Yoi Yoshida. She is a Shibari artist & kink educator based in Bangkok, Thailand.