Netherlands
Dutch rope teaching goes back at least to 2013, when RopeLounge opened in Amsterdam; Groningen has a long-numbered community jam, and event listings show rope jams and workshops in Rotterdam, Utrecht, Eindhoven, Tilburg and Nijmegen.
Cities
Numbers show studios and communities.
Coming up in Netherlands
Regular events
Shibari in Netherlands
One fixed point in the Dutch timeline is May 2013, when Asiana, who also goes by Eileen, founded RopeLounge in Amsterdam to teach Japanese rope bondage through introduction workshops, beginners courses and intermediate levels. Its page notes that she is regularly invited to teach and perform in the Netherlands and abroad, and that the project works with groups that run classes and events for LGBTQI+ and BIPOC people. Amsterdam’s other studios, jam spaces and study groups are described in the Amsterdam guide.
Jams across the country
Outside the capital, the sources found for this page show community-run rope jams and workshops. RopeJam Groningen, which says it is run “by and for” rope enthusiasts as an afternoon of peer learning, lists numbered sessions that have passed the hundred mark, and its site has pages in Dutch and English. A snapshot of shibari events on the ticket platform Hipsy, viewed on 1 November 2026, showed upcoming November and December events in Rotterdam (Ringside Ropejam and the queer peer group Queertied), Utrecht, Eindhoven, Tilburg, Nijmegen and Bilthoven next to Amsterdam, plus a jam in Lokeren in Belgium.
Rope has also been presented as culture. In April 2022 Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam gave one of its Thursday Night Live evenings to shibari, with a short lecture on the history of Japanese and Western bondage, a guided rope jam with a basic workshop, an exhibition by a local artist and a closing performance.
A queer festival
Queer organizers have built events of their own. The Queer Shibari Festival in Amsterdam held its second edition as a day of workshops and an evening of performances, with a silent rope jam, rope provided and solo participants matched in the workshops.
How it fits together
RopeLounge and Amsterdam’s other studios and study groups are covered in the city guide, while the other cities named here appear on this page through jams and workshops run by local organizers. The wider European context is told in Kinbaku in Europe. For what to expect at a first session, see What happens at a first shibari class.