Montréal

The Montréal scene

Montréal has a tradition of showing rope to a general audience. La Nuit des Cordes, a shibari performance event timed to the city’s Nuit Blanche art night, was in its fifth year when the sociologist Zoey Jones finished her 2020 dissertation on rope communities; it is discussed with Toronto’s similar event in Kinbaku in North America. This page describes the studio, the dojo and the community nights where rope is taught and practiced in the city now.

Tension

Tension calls itself Montréal’s local shibari studio and is in the downtown area near Beaudry metro station, with a calm, Japanese-inspired interior. Its owners are Willcat, who has tied since 2015, Masha, who has tied regularly since 2017, and Cwiss, a woodworker who built much of what is in the studio.

Tension’s curriculum borrows the martial-arts idea of belts. Rope colors mark levels, from beige Fundamentals, which every student takes first, whether tying or being tied, through green Floorplay to yellow and red suspension classes and black-level private classes in dynamic suspension. The studio insists that the colors are not certificates and calls the curriculum a path rather than a ladder, using the Japanese word dō. Side tracks run alongside it: Flying Solo for people without a partner, a Thursday lab on the structure of suspendable ties, and Nawajutsu, rope training in a martial-arts setting.

Practice is as central as classes. Several evenings a week the studio is open until 10 p.m. for supervised practice, where people can come alone or with a partner to watch, tie and talk with teachers and regulars. About once a month it holds Soirée Shibari, a performance night with three scenes by three pairs, often with performers flown in from abroad and sometimes with its own advanced students. It also holds rope socials for finding partners, bondage life drawing and weekend intensives with guest teachers. The studio says racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia have no place there, and it offers a small number of scholarships and an energy-exchange program in which volunteers earn classes.

During Montreal Fetish Weekend in September 2026, Tension opened its doors for three days, including KNOcTAMBULE, a free community performance night for students, emerging performers and experienced practitioners, a shibari demonstration with questions from Willcat, and a craft fair of local makers.

Nawakai

Nawakai, formerly known as Kinbaku Dojo Montréal, teaches a six-level series that runs from an introduction to shibari to advanced communication and trust, and holds workshops and demonstrations online and in person. Isabelle Hanikamu teaches there, in a style she names Sensual Semenawa Ryū (see semenawa), and offers private and group lessons. Her site records teaching abroad, including a workshop at Sydney Rope Dojo and a European tour in 2017.

Community nights

Some practice is organized by the community itself. Mens Rope Night, a monthly open practice for gay, bi, trans and queer men who tie men, has met in Montréal since November 2019; it has no instruction and welcomes all levels and people who come alone. For how such nights differ from classes, see Rope jams, munches and salons.

Languages

The scene works in both of the city’s languages. Nawakai’s website is in French and English, as is Isabelle Hanikamu’s, and Tension, whose site is in English, sells an English edition of its Fundamentals book and a bilingual card game.