Toronto

The Toronto scene

Toronto’s rope scene has two well-documented threads: a public performance tradition tied to the city’s all-night art festival, and a school that brought a Japanese lineage to Canada. How both fit the wider Canadian and American story is told in Kinbaku in North America.

Rope on Nuit Blanche

For about a decade Toronto hosted a rope event that billed itself as the largest of its kind. Morpheous’ Bondage Extravaganza, started by the author and educator Lord Morpheous, was held on the night of Nuit Blanche, the city’s all-night art festival, though it was never an official part of it. According to the event, the first edition in 2007 took place in a storefront window on Queen Street West; it later filled a 4,000-square-foot venue. In 2014 it ran from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. at The Great Hall, free and for adults only, billed itself as the world’s largest single-night rope bondage exhibit and streamed live online alongside sister events in Orlando and San Francisco. Its strict rules, which kept the show suitable for a general art audience, are discussed in the North America history.

A Kazami-ryū school

Toronto’s best-documented teaching lineage comes from Osaka. The salon’s own history credits the rigger Osaka Dan, at the time the only foreign deshi of the Kansai master Kazami Ranki, with starting the first Toronto Kinbaku Salon in late September 2013, in a tiny apartment fitted with a few tatami mats and two rope points. After he invited Kazami to teach a five-day intensive in Toronto in March 2014, the salon reorganized as a school of Kazami-ryū, using the four levels it still teaches. Demand grew fast, and within half a year of becoming a school it held classes five evenings a week. Kazami-ryū puts safety, comfort and balance first.

When the founder left Canada in late 2015, the instructors he had trained kept the school going. In May 2017 two of them accepted the title of deshi to Kazami Ranki, and in November 2018 they became shihan, senior instructors, with a third teacher as their own deshi. Kazami has continued to visit. The salon has moved several times. A building sale took it from Queen Street West to Spadina Avenue in 2016, and in 2017 it moved to a better space on Parliament Street. Another sale forced it out at the end of 2022; it used Birdhaus for a few Fridays and settled in its present home in March 2023. It marked its tenth anniversary that September. Besides the Kazami levels it teaches beginner and floor-rope classes and holds weekly open rope salons, which it describes as rope parties, as well as Sunday salons.

Birdhaus and rope as performance art

Birdhaus, an avant-garde event space co-founded by an aerialist and a shibari artist, offers a contrasting approach. Its rope program describes itself as inclusive, creative and comprehensive. It teaches rope in small components with the aim of play, across several styles, and says that everyone’s path in rope is valid. Its calendar includes a Tuesday practice night, beginner classes followed by a social jam, suspension workshops and Bound Together, a gathering for the BIPOC community.

Birdhaus also hosts Suspended Harmony, a collaboration with the Suspended Harmony Collective. Rope artists and models perform with live musicians, from electronic soundscapes to electric violin, cello and piano, and afterward the floor opens to local practitioners for a social night. The organizers say it runs on the last Sunday of every other month. Both venues advertise their programs in English.