Lani DeViate

Lani DeViate, also written Lani De Viate, is a rope model, performer and community organizer in Sydney and one of the three co-founders of Studio Kink, the kink education studio that opened in the city in 2015. She is its director.

Rope and performance

Her biography on the Studio Kink team page dates the start of her rope partnership with Mark DeViate to 2006, when, on one of her first visits to the Sydney club Hellfire, she asked him to tie her. They have performed together since. The page describes the style they developed as traditional shibari with a high-energy edge, and says her fluid transitions, expressive movement and aerial work earned her the nickname “Flygirl”. She has performed and presented at kink and fetish events in Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Japan; the events named are Toubaku, the Japan Fetish Ball, Hellfire, the Sensual Ball and the LA Fetish Ball, in cities including Sydney, San Francisco, Tokyo and Vancouver. Mark DeViate’s biography on the same page says the pair performed at Hellfire from 2006 until its last show there in 2019.

She has also taught alongside him abroad. The archived program of ROPECRAFT Chicago, held in May 2017, billed a “Mark & Lani Deviate Intensive” titled “All the Hishi!”, a session for up to fifteen tying pairs on four hishi-based ties in the Akechi Denki style.

Studio Kink and organizing

According to the team page, her work at Studio Kink is mostly behind the scenes: she manages the class schedule, liaises with community groups and coordinates events and special programs, while Mark DeViate and others do most of the teaching. She has organized five Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras floats for the studio and the city’s fetish community; the 2024 float, “KINK: Unchain Your Future”, won the award for Best Float Design.

Leather title

In 2024 she was sashed Sydney Ms Leather, a role she describes on the team page as advocacy for inclusion, visibility and growth in leather and kink communities. She chose the Bobby Goldsmith Foundation, an HIV charity, as the beneficiary of her title year, and a kink art silent auction raised money for her trip to the International Ms Leather and Bootblack contest in Piscataway, New Jersey, in April 2025. The Star Observer listed her in April 2025 among the Australian titleholders travelling to compete overseas that year.