Stella Spei

Stella Spei works under the name Stell’Art Ropes and leads ASKA, an association founded in Albi in 2014.

Association and events

ASKA’s site says the association has been led by Stella Spei since 2019, and her own biography gives the same year, adding that she organizes the Rope Camp festival. The association’s pages describe the Rope Camp as an event it organizes around shibari and kinbaku, and say that its immersive format is held at the Maison du Saula in La Française. ASKA also runs Shibari Mon Amour, a series of evenings combining performance, photography, reading and visual arts; its site says the sixth season took place with Kasumi Hourai. The ASKA home page announces an exhibition and shibari performance with Stella Spei in Gaillac on 14 November.

Teaching

Her biography says she has taught introductions and beginner and intermediate classes in Toulouse, Bordeaux and Bayonne since 2018, and lists all-level classes for ASKA in Toulouse, Saint-Sulpice-la-Pointe and Albi, plus private lessons for couples. An ASKA ticket listing for a night of performance and rope practice on 1 February 2020 names her as the person offering the introduction for newcomers. In the 2019 Occitanie Japon interview she described her workshops as opening with safety, intention and communication, and as centered on limits and consent.

Training and performance

The interview says she came to shibari through classes with Nicolas Yoroi in Albi and had practiced judo and jujitsu before. Her biography lists training from 2014 onward with Nicolas Yoroi, Mikael Ronski, Andrea Ropes, Pedro Cordas, Docvale, Akira Nakamura, Isabelle Hanikamu, Bruce Esinem and Nina Russ, Tamandua and Misungui.

The same page names semenawa as a particular interest and describes her as performing as model, rigger and self-suspender. It lists self-bondage shows at the Kalinka cabaret in Toulouse in 2019 and 2020, and rigger performances including the High Culture Festival in 2018, Toulouse Fashion Week in 2018 and 2019, and the Rope Camp in 2019. It also names rope-bottom performances with Andrea Ropes and Isabelle Hanikamu, and mentions performing with Cici Cz and Poulet ChickenJoe.