Australia
Shibari in Australia grew inside Sydney's kink community from the early 2000s, with a Sydney rope dojo and festival by 2014, studios in Sydney and Melbourne, and volunteer class collectives that keep rope teaching non-sexual.
Cities
Numbers show studios and communities.
Coming up in Australia
Regular events
Shibari in Australia
Australian rope teaching has documented links to both Japan and North America. The early tours of Japanese teachers are covered in Kinbaku goes global, and the regional story, from a Sydney dojo to festivals and touring performances, in Kinbaku in Asia-Pacific. This page gives the national outline and points to the city guides.
Sydney’s kink community
One documented career shows how rope grew inside an existing kink scene. According to Studio Kink, Mark DeViate co-founded DV8House in 2001, a private home that hosted kink gatherings and shared workshops, performed at the Sydney Hellfire Club from 2006 to 2019 and developed his rope under the guidance of Osada Steve in Japan. By 2005 he had presented at a rope symposium in Austin and went on to teach regularly at ShibariCon in Chicago. In 2015 he co-founded Studio Kink with Lani and Aleni DeViate.
By the early 2010s Sydney also had a dedicated school and festival. Writing in Archer Magazine in 2014, Emma Kate described the Sydney Rope Dojo, where classes covered rope handling, safety and injury prevention, and announced a Sydney Rope Festival of workshops, talks and performances for all levels. The Berlin rope artist Gestalta lists presentations at Sydney shibari festivals in 2013 and 2014. See the Sydney guide.
Class collectives
Elsewhere, some groups present themselves first of all as schools. Peer Rope Melbourne presents itself as an education provider for the kink and queer communities, with courses in Brunswick and St Kilda. In Adelaide, CityMag reported in 2020 that Peer Rope Adelaide, a not-for-profit run by seven volunteers, taught more than a hundred members three nights a week in a studio with sixteen suspension points, and that its classes are never sexual. The Melbourne guide describes further groups and the Japanese lineages taught there.
Rope on stage
Rope also reaches arts festivals. In February 2017 Arts House presented Bunny, an interactive rope performance by Daniel Kok and Luke George, at the Meat Market in North Melbourne as part of the Asia TOPA festival; it was commissioned by Campbelltown Arts Centre and co-produced by The Substation in Singapore. Gestalta lists performances at the Adelaide Fringe in March 2018.
The groups’ websites are in English. For advice before a first class, see Is shibari dangerous?.