Rigger Maia
São Paulo rigger active since 2016, managing partner of Shibari House Brasil, where Maia makes the handmade jute rope and co-teaches the full shibari course at Estúdio Ifigênia with Mariana Rodeso; main interest is semenawa.
Rigger Maia, or simply Maia, is a rope rigger, craftsman and teacher in São Paulo and the managing partner of Shibari House Brasil, a rope maker and studio. The studio’s profile says Maia has been active as a rigger since 2016.
Community work and Shibari House Brasil
According to the profile, Maia spent years helping to run Atados no Parque in São Paulo, a project that offered free and varied access to rope practice, until 2025. Shibari House Brasil itself started in the Penha district in January 2021 to gather safe, informative teaching material on shibari in Portuguese. Within the business Maia is mainly responsible for making its handmade jute rope, strand by strand, as well as for customer service; the studio’s Quem Somos page describes the role as the base of the company. In November 2024 Shibari House opened Estúdio Ifigênia in the historic center of São Paulo, and the profile says Maia is currently devoted to developing that studio. The studio has run workshops in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Curitiba.
Style and teaching
The profile names Maia’s main interest as pain and endurance dynamics, also known as semenawa, and describes a way of leading a session that starts gently and grows progressively more intense, which can make those sessions among the most demanding in the practice. Maia teaches a range of advanced shibari studies and, with Mariana Rodeso, leads the studio’s Curso Integral de Shibari: a certificate course held on three Saturday mornings a month that runs from beginner to advanced material and from floor work to suspension, with regular follow-up. The team page lists Maia as rigger, craftsman and educator.
Other work
Maia has worked on rope for fashion, music videos and photo shoots, and was the consultant responsible for the rope technique used in the 2023 Netflix series Olhar Indiscreto, for which Shibari House supplied techniques, consulting and products. The profile also mentions a book of photographic portraits in progress with the photographer Felipe Ferrara.