Yukimura Haruki雪村春樹
Japanese kinbaku master, photographer and performer (1948–2016) who founded Yukimura-ryū, a gentle, emotion-centered style of rope.
Yukimura Haruki was born on May 11, 1948, in Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. Besides his rope work he was a photographer, reggae musician, performer and audiovisual producer.
Over the years of his teaching he developed his own approach to kinbaku, known today as Yukimura-ryū. He put feeling at the center of his rope: emotion, shame, and the wordless exchange between the rigger, the rope and the person in it. Teachers of his style describe it as aibu no nawa, “caressing rope”.
Practitioners from Japan and abroad came to regard his studio in Shibuya, Tokyo, as a point of reference. Yukimura was selective about succession: only a handful of students ever received a bakushi name or his license to teach.
He died on March 3, 2016, in a Tokyo hospital, at the age of 67.