Ryuzaki Asuka 龍崎飛鳥

Ryuzaki Asuka (龍崎飛鳥) is a kinbakushi in Kyoto who runs the fetish bar BAR-BARA the Bizarre in the Gion district. Japanese Wikipedia records that Ryuzaki began working in the 1990s and staged SM shows.

Early career

Ryuzaki told Kinbaku Today in 2020 that this work began in 1990 at Rosencreutz, which Ryuzaki called Kyoto’s first SM club and where play centered on kinbaku. Ryuzaki recalled that Kansai had no professional kinbakushi at the time and said Ryuzaki learned by watching videos of Nureki Chimuo and Akechi Denki. Ryuzaki told Kinbaku Today that Barajūjikan was western Japan’s first SM bar and that Ryuzaki served as its mama-san for about eighteen months from 1993; Japanese Wikipedia dates the departure from Rosencreutz and Barajūjikan to 1995. Kinbaku Today dates the start of Ryuzaki’s VELVET salon to November 1995; Ryuzaki recalled that it met in an apartment before becoming BAR-BARA.

BAR-BARA and other venues

Japanese Wikipedia dates the opening of BAR-BARA in Gion to 1996, BAR-BARA in Nagoya to 1997–2003, VELVET in Nagoya to 1998–2002, Kairaidō in Kyoto to 2002, and BAR-BARA in Sapporo to 2012–2014. Japanese Wikipedia dates the start of the Velvet video label to 1996; Kinbaku Today also records that Ryuzaki’s VELVET OVERDOSE appeared serially in Bizarre Magazine that year. In the interview Ryuzaki recalled writing for as many as six magazines a month in those years. Japanese Wikipedia lists Kinbaku Kaitai Shinsho (緊縛解体新書) among Ryuzaki’s works on the Velvet label. Japanese Wikipedia records a 23rd-anniversary party for the bar in February 2019, with more than 300 guests, and stage and film events for its 25th and 30th anniversaries in 2022 and 2026 at the Kyoto Prefectural Center for Arts and Culture.

Germany, 1996

Japanese Wikipedia records a week of guest shows at EUROTICA in 1996 and a subsequent week at Düsseldorf’s Modern Creation; it locates a second October show at Düsseldorf’s Rainbow hall, while Ryuzaki told Kinbaku Today that Rainbow was at Wuppertal City Hall. In the interview Ryuzaki explained that the fair had moved from Düsseldorf to Berlin that year and that the Rainbow event came through contacts made at Modern Creation, and said Ryuzaki knew of no one else who had been asked to work abroad before that year. The interviewer, Sin, introduced Ryuzaki as having performed and taught in the West before Akechi Denki.

Art and stage work

An artscape announcement for Christian Jankowski’s first solo exhibition in Japan said that Floating World would include test pieces made with Ryuzaki during research in Kyoto in June 2018; it listed the exhibition at @KCUA from September 15 to October 28, 2018. Jankowski’s own site, which spells the name Aska, describes the resulting work Traveling Artist: Ryuzaki tied Jankowski and the artist’s travel bags, then arranged the bags into a rope sculpture that was shown with the photographs at @KCUA.

Japanese Wikipedia also records that since March 30, 2020, Ryuzaki has held Unrecognizable Freedom (認識のできない自由さ), an event combining butoh, music, dance and rope at UrBANGUILD in Kyoto, with Ishii Norihito of Sankai Juku, the dancer Kimura Eiichi and the accordionist ryotaro; Kinbaku Today notes the same March 2020 event. Japanese Wikipedia says Ryuzaki uses the stage name Kishimi and treats rope as a sign or condition in this stage work.