Melbourne

The Melbourne scene

Much of Melbourne’s rope scene is organized around classes: committee-run groups, small schools and studios that teach Japanese rope in structured courses, with jams and performance nights alongside. The wider Australian story is told in Kinbaku in Asia-Pacific, and this page adds what is particular to Melbourne.

Classes before parties

A 2015 Time Out Melbourne guide to the city’s fetish scene already shows the pattern. The organizers of Chains, a monthly BDSM night, pointed beginners to the Melbourne Rope Dojo, a class run by a shibari practitioner named Scott. The writer found that it felt more like a martial arts or yoga class than anything kinky, with a strong focus on safety. Rope was presented as a skill to learn in class before using it at a party.

Today’s larger groups also put teaching first. Peer Rope Melbourne, founded in 2017, says it is a tuition program, not a BDSM group, and does not organize play parties. Its head instructor, Avalon, has studied shibari in Japan since 2008, including with Osada Steve. The school calls itself an inclusive, safer space for LGBTIQ+ people. It runs beginner and intermediate courses in Brunswick and St Kilda. Melbourne Community Rope is a committee-run, not-for-profit group. Members pay a small yearly fee and can vote at its general meetings. It describes itself as body positive, consent focused and LGBTQIA+ friendly. It holds weekly beginner and intermediate classes and a monthly rope jam, where people can tie, be tied or simply watch.

Japanese lineages

Some Melbourne teachers trace their rope directly to Tokyo schools. RopeDojo presents itself as a studio for hojōjutsu, shibari and kinbaku. It says its instructors are Tokyo-trained and licensed, and that they teach several Japanese ryū. It has hosted a Melbourne tour by Yagami Ren and a three-day intensive with teachers from Milan’s Yugen Studio. It also holds a Sunday jam, a members’ film night on Japanese rope and even a sumi-e ink-painting workshop. The Yagami-ryū school lists a licensed instructor at a Melbourne rope dojo among its teachers abroad.

Stages and drop-in classes

Melbourne also has rope as performance. In February 2017 the Arts House program of the Asia TOPA festival staged Bunny by Daniel Kok and Luke George at the Meat Market in North Melbourne. It is an interactive rope piece performed in the round that explores desire, trust and consent; the Asia-Pacific history follows its tour. In December 2022 Time Out Melbourne listed regular rope nights in the city: the Shibari Soiree, a showcase held every three months in Carlton, and the monthly Shibari Lounge at a bar on Flinders Lane. In the same article, a local teacher described a thriving, welcoming scene.

For a first taste without a partner, Laneway Learning, a general evening-class school, schedules short introductory shibari classes with the local rope artist Harli Adalia. Students practice on themselves, and free tickets are offered to First Nations attendees. Classes in Melbourne are advertised in English. See Choosing a teacher for how to compare these options.