Vienna

The Vienna scene

Two events in 2011 mark the start of Vienna’s documented rope scene. The xplore festival, which Berlin first hosted in 2004 as a program exploring sexuality, BDSM and tantra in practice and discussion, began holding local editions in other cities that year, Vienna among them, according to Dock 11’s portrait of its founder Felix Ruckert. And in the same year Vienna gained a dedicated rope studio with a Japanese lineage.

An Osada-ryū dojo

Kinbaku Studio Vienna, also known as Hasenstall, was founded in 2011 by Vinciens and his partner. The official Osada-ryū site includes it, as Shibari Dojo Vienna, among four dojos, alongside the Tokyo headquarters of Osada Steve, a dojo in Bremen and a fourth whose city is not given, and records Vinciens as a licensed Osada-ryū instructor since 2011. The studio does not teach a single style, though: its teaching page says classes follow Osada-ryū with Vinciens or Barkas Kinbaku with its co-teacher Belial_X, and that there is no dogmatism about style, so students of any previous teacher are welcome. Its regular evening is a weekly “Kinbaku Tuesday”, alongside numbered workshop modules for beginners and private lessons.

Community groups and queer-friendly jams

Much of the city’s open practice is run by volunteer groups rather than schools. Rope Rebels is a non-profit run by a few friends who love rope; its stated aim is to make rope events safer, more inclusive and welcoming to queer people. Its rope jams on the first and third Wednesday of the month include an introduction for beginners and several hardpoints for suspension, and it also organizes rope speed dating and workshops. Querverbindungen, a registered art and culture association, calls itself “undogmatic, playful, arty and queer” and welcomes Western, fusion and Japanese-style rope alike. It runs a bondage jam every Monday with a beginners’ corner, a munch every two weeks and workshops with guest teachers. The kink venue CRUCIBLE/Vienna adds rope jams of its own, where an experienced practitioner can look after a beginners’ corner and show the basics.

What the city offers now

Between a lineage dojo, jams run by associations on several nights of the week and queer-friendly groups, Vienna offers both structured teaching and informal practice. Some groups work bilingually: Rope Rebels holds its events in English or German depending on who comes, and Kinbaku Studio Vienna publishes its site in German, English and Japanese. If you are new to the differences between schools and open groups, see Choosing a teacher and Rope jams, munches and salons.