Athens

The Athens scene

Much of the public rope activity documented in Athens comes from AthenShibari, a team of rope enthusiasts that, in its own words, came together to share interests, views and values and has grown considerably since 2018. For December 2019 the team announced a Bondage Night at an Athens bar venue, planned as three contrasting acts. In the first, the local rigger WisDomme was to tie an audience member chosen at random, after a short on-stage talk about negotiation. The Spanish rope artist Angela Nawa was billed to perform Quejío, a piece joining flamenco, song and dance with shibari, and a third act was to show a Western style of restraint with rope and tape.

A team with its own space

The team now has its own space in the city and describes its offer as regular classes for people who tie, people who are tied and couples, held on Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday evenings, alongside private lessons, self-tie classes, online lessons and rope sessions for models. Monthly shows, rope jams and play parties complete the calendar, and its site lists a guide to becoming a paid model and an online shop for rope. The values it names are consent, inclusivity and diversity, body positivity, freedom of expression and kink positivity, with activities expected to be safe, sane and explicitly consensual, an echo of SSC. It works with Thessaloniki Shibari and travels to teach and perform in the UK, Germany, Denmark, Cyprus and Brussels.

Some of its events are aimed at the public. At an Athens film festival in 2023, WisDomme, Nyx and a third team member were listed for a 90-minute introduction to shibari, free with an optional donation, covering its history and styles, the perspectives of both partners, communication, negotiation, consent and risk, rope care and how to get started. For September 2026 the team announced a public session on aibunawa, which it calls the art of seductive rope, with WisDomme and Nyx, to mark Nyx’s five years with the team, just before its regular Saturday jam.

Guests from Japan and abroad

AthenShibari also brings in visiting teachers. For March 2027 it has announced a performance and two days of workshops with the Japanese kinbakushi Hourai Kasumi. According to the announcement, she was born in Aichi Prefecture in 1980, entered the kinbaku world in 1999, has worked freelance since 2001, spent two years as a rigger at Kinbaku Sajiki and has taught and performed around the world since 2018, with a preference for traditional semenawa. The first day centres on the gote and floor work, the second on partial suspension and suspension. The touring Berlin teacher Gestalta also lists Athens among the cities where she has performed.

What the city offers now

A newcomer can book a regular group class, take private or self-tie lessons, or start at a jam or public session. AthenShibari’s site is in Greek and English, but it does not say which language classes are taught in, so it is worth asking when booking. For other routes into rope, see Ways into shibari, and for the European context, Kinbaku in Europe.