Mexico

The sources found for this overview describe shibari in Mexico City and say nothing about classes or groups in other Mexican cities. They are mostly press reports, and they show a scene that became visible in the late 2010s. How Mexico fits the wider North American story is told in Kinbaku in North America.

Workshops in the press

In December 2017 Time Out México described the Instituto Mexicano del Shibari, which held workshops every two weeks at a cultural center for sexual diversity, where people learned knots and pressure points. A few months later, in May 2018, VICE wrote that riggers were beginning to emerge in Mexico and credited the internet, which gave newcomers access to sources on the practice from old Japan to the present. It profiled Tengu Shibari Dojo, a Mexico City school run by two teachers who made their own rope and charged about 200 pesos for a workshop.

Queer-led teaching appears in the same years. In January 2019 Time Out México’s LGBT section listed a three- to four-hour shibari and bondage class by Mike Urueta, who had learned through workshops with other practitioners, books and videos and who stressed that every body was welcome. In 2021 the magazine profiled ShibaritxsMX, a group founded by Miguel Urueta that taught in the city and online and described its members as mainly LGBTTTI, though open to everyone.

Small studios and visiting teachers

Today most teaching happens in small spaces built around a teacher or a collective, described in the Mexico City guide. These spaces also link the city to scenes abroad. Estudio Jorogumo, a trans-dissident studio, has promoted the first Mexico City visit of a Shanghai rope artist whose work mixes classic Japanese kinbaku with European performance and installation art, and it calls itself the official Mexican distributor of a rope brand, which spares buyers the cost of importing jute.

Language

Classes, studio websites and press coverage are in Spanish. For ways to compare small studios and individual teachers, see Choosing a teacher.