Turin

The Turin scene

Shibari courses in Italy go back to the early 2000s, but Il Post reported in 2025 that they stayed very niche until about a decade ago and that interest has grown sharply in the last five years. The paper listed Turin among the Italian cities with rope schools and groups of their own. The teachers profiled below all came to rope during the 2010s.

From the BDSM community to a school

The rigger Black Angel, whose Shibari Torino site gives his first name as Marco, writes that he first took up rope in 2012 within Turin’s BDSM community and learned different tying styles from a series of Italian teachers, among them Dr. Fatso, QuartaCorda, Boris Mosafir, Beppe Ambrosia and Davide La Greca. He has been part of local social formats such as the Torino munch and discussion evenings on alternative sexuality. In 2020 he opened FunLab Torino, whose teacher page lists a Marco (Angelo Oscuro) trained by the same Italian teachers. FunLab is a school for shibari and other BDSM practices that is also a private dungeon. Its course plan starts with safety (anatomy, physiology and psychology) and materials, moves through basic and intermediate ties and ends with guided suspensions and hashira work. Lessons are for adults only, exclude sex and nudity, and the school can find a volunteer partner for people who come without one. FunLab’s calendar also lists a weekly Monday rope evening, Corde del Lunedì. Black Angel’s own teaching project, Shibari Torino, holds classes at FunLab and at other venues in the city.

The Naka line at Peony Studio

A second strand reaches Turin from Japan by way of Italy. According to the biography used for their performances, Kurogami and Shiawase took up Japanese bondage in late 2016 under Riccardo Wildties and Red Sabbath. In February 2018 Kurogami became an educator in Wildties’s Kinbaku LuXuria, a style the same text presents as a direct descendant of Naka-ryū, and in December 2019 the pair appeared in Tokyo at the 25th Nawa Naka Kai, on the same bill as Wildties and Naka Akira. Their studio, Peony Studio, takes its name from Naka’s peony tattoo as a tribute to his legacy. It teaches through a graded path of two Foundation levels followed by Classe 1 and 1+, alongside assisted-practice evenings where teachers give feedback without a lesson, rope jams, open days and weekend workshops with visiting teachers. Kurogami also teaches outside Italy; the Lyon teacher Eric Shore names him among the guests he invites. How this Naka line spread through Italy, France and Prague is told in Kinbaku in Europe.

A community space

Alithia Maltese began studying Japanese bondage in 2015 and, from that year, chose to speak publicly about her practice in talks, interviews and public discussions. In December 2022 she opened Spazio Corde, which she presents as more than a bondage school: a meeting place where people can explore their sexuality through exchange with peers, with professionals invited once a month to talk about alternative sexuality and mental and sexual health. Its courses begin with an introduction to Japanese bondage, and the project also travels beyond its Turin venue. She also runs workshops on consent and non-verbal communication across Italy.

What the city offers now

A newcomer can choose between a lineage-based studio path, a mixed-level BDSM school with a weekly rope night, and a community space with courses and peer sessions. The programs cited here are published in Italian; Peony Studio’s site also has an English version, and some of its advanced workshop descriptions are written in English. For what to expect at a first session, see What happens at a first shibari class.