Lisbon

The Lisbon scene

One documented thread in Lisbon’s rope history runs through the teacher Pedro Cordas, who lives in the city. According to his profiles on Studio Kink and ShibariNews, his interest in rope began in Tokyo in 2003, where ShibariNews says he was the first student of Osada Steve. In 2004 he started classes with Akechi Denki, who died on 17 July 2005, and afterwards studied with Akechi Kanna; he names both as lasting influences, a line described under Akechi-ryū. A workshop in Berlin in January 2014 led him to look more closely at the style of Naka Akira and at patterns from hojōjutsu. He performs mainly in Portugal, especially in Lisbon, and has also appeared at the London Festival of the Art of Japanese Bondage, at Bondage Expo Dallas in the United States and in Japan. He has taught in many European countries as well as in the United States, Canada and Australia, and made Jyowa “Rope Stories”, a documentary on five Japanese rope artists.

Rope on a Lisbon stage

Rope has also reached the city’s cultural institutions. The touring teacher Gestalta lists in her CV a 75-minute piece titled Shibari, performed with Pedro Diniz Reis at Culturgest in Lisbon in June 2016, and she names Lisbon among the cities where she has performed. The wider story of rope on European stages is told in Kinbaku in Europe.

Knot Lounge

A community project in the city is Knot Lounge. According to the partner page of The Joy Spot, Monad and Morgana have practiced rope bondage since 2017 and are part of the Knot Lounge project, where they give workshops and performances with the aim of making the practice better known and less mysterious.

Beginner workshops

Other groups run introductory sessions. KNOTY, a Portuguese project that shares information about shibari and BDSM in Portugal, held a four-hour beginner workshop at a cultural venue in Lisbon in July 2025. It combined theory and practice: safety, what to expect at a first session, knots and the importance of a good single column tie, locks, friction, tension and counter-tension, and rope handling. People could come with or without a partner or to learn self-tie, and rope was available on site.

What the city offers now

A newcomer can look for a beginner workshop like KNOTY’s, watch for workshops and performances from Knot Lounge, or contact Pedro Cordas, whose profiles describe him as living in Lisbon and as having taught for several years in Portugal and abroad. The KNOTY listing is in Portuguese. For travelers, Rope when you travel explains how to find a scene in an unfamiliar city, and What happens at a first shibari class covers a first session.