Tenshiko

Tenshiko, also credited as Marta Tenshiko, is an Italian rope teacher, model and performer based in Milan. She works with the rigger Kirigami (Federico Kirigami), and almost everything published about her describes the two of them together: the pages of School of Rope and Yūgen Studio, the venues they run, and the biographies printed with their workshops.

School of Rope and Yūgen Studio

According to Yūgen Studio’s website, Federico and Marta have worked together since 2011; a workshop biography says they have taught and performed in European cities since 2012. School of Rope presents itself as the project of Kirigami and Tenshiko for teaching Japanese bondage, opened in Milan in 2016. Its courses, held in evening classes and weekend intensives, cover not only the technique of the ties but also the physical, aesthetic and psychological sides of the practice, elements of Japanese history and culture, and stretching for the person being tied. The school describes a path that moves from safe basic technique toward fluid tying and communication between the two partners, so that rope becomes a means of carrying aesthetic and emotional content rather than an end in itself.

From 2016 to 2020 the pair ran a smaller venue in central Milan, and in 2020 they opened Yūgen Studio, a dedicated rope venue with a 40-tatami floor, multiple hard points and pillars and a social lounge. The studio hosts workshops, performances, photography sessions and community events and puts particular weight on collaborations with Japanese teachers, performers and photographers, including projects in Tokyo. It also publishes books and Yūgen Studio Magazine. Both venues are run through the association Kiri Nawa Kai.

Teaching abroad

Workshop listings published by Yūgen Studio say the pair’s style is rooted in classical Japanese kinbaku and shaped by traditional Japanese arts, especially the tea ceremony, which they continue to study. In 2023 they were invited to teach in Latin America and Australia and began working with the photographer Sugiura Norio on international workshops in Europe and Japan and on editorial projects. Their advanced weekend “Without the Gote” explores restraining the hands without the classic back tie, using bamboo, hashira and other implements in partial and full suspension. In December 2026 they teach a three-day workshop at Daruma in Berlin for intermediate practitioners, built around the idea of kata, intended to help participants find a voice of their own.

Performance and views

Tenshiko performs both as a model and as a rigger: for a livestreamed evening from Yūgen Studio in October 2026 she tied the model Nana in the opening show. In a 2022 interview with the Italian site DiLei, in which she was introduced as a kinbaku model and teacher, she argued that what separates Japanese rope from Western bondage is less the technique than the fantasy behind it, with themes of shame and guilt rather than abduction. She described the experience of being tied as physically stressful rather than truly painful, intimate and ritual, sometimes bringing up memories, and often a relief for people used to being in control. On safety she advised avoiding nerve compression and the neck, progressing gradually, and learning more complex ties in a course that explains where and how tightly to tie.