Discover Kinbaku
Berlin duo Alexander MA and Natasha NawaTaNeko, teaching and performing since 2016 with a semenawa rooted in Akira Naka’s. At Studio 6×6 in Moabit they run workshops, course series and coaching for couples; they also host the Kinbaku Salon and publish the Kinbaku Society of Berlin Magazine.
Discover Kinbaku is the joint project of Alexander MA and Natasha NawaTaNeko, partners since 2011, who teach together so that the perspectives of the rigger and the person in the rope are both present. They studied with European and Japanese teachers and name the semenawa of Akira Naka as a major influence; they describe their focus as trust, communication and precise, embodied technique.
Studio 6×6
Their home base is Studio 6×6, an attic studio on the fifth floor of a residential building in Moabit, reachable only by stairs. It is furnished along Japanese lines, with tatami, bamboo suspension points and a traditional hashira.
Workshops
The workshop menu runs from Beginning the Journey and a two-day intensive for beginner couples (From Zero to Patterns and Play) through floor and hashira ties and an introduction to suspension, to a series on semenawa: a thorough introduction to the stemless gote, semi and full suspensions, movement and control in semenawa suspensions, and Bodies under Pressure, which treats rope as pressure and impact. Advanced students can take Ichi-go Ichi-e and masterclasses on intention, scene-building and personal aesthetics. Teaching is in English and German, and organizers can request tailored formats. The duo also offers coaching for couples, riggers and rope bottoms, sessions, photo sessions and performances.
Salon and magazine
The Kinbaku Salon, created by Alexander MA, is an evening format of talks, artist conversations, screenings, performances, book presentations and exhibitions, on kinbaku history but also on photography, Japanese aesthetics and underground culture. No prior knowledge is needed, and it has been presented in New York, London, Copenhagen and Lisbon. It grew from the same editorial vision as The Kinbaku Society of Berlin Magazine, which they publish with their independent press Die Goldbomben. The not-for-profit magazine started in 2019 with a small group of students and 100 copies, was printed as a quarterly through the COVID years (16 issues, the last at 350 copies) and now appears twice a year, mixing photography, poetry, fiction, essays, drawings and interviews.