Spain

Spain’s documented rope history begins with visiting teachers and a handful of organizers in Madrid and Barcelona. In 2017 the magazine Yorokobu credited the founder of the Barcelona club Rosas Cinco with bringing Osada Steve to the city for the first time. In Madrid, Alberto Noshibari writes that he organized a series of rope meetings, Encuentros de Cuerdas, at the venue El Garage in 2008, and that he later ran monthly workshop series in both cities for more than a year, Atar y ser atado in Madrid and Nido de Cuerdas in Barcelona. He also lists a Triangular de Shibari at Sala Clamores in Madrid in November 2014, held during the first visit of Naka Akira to Spain.

Schools, collectives and a convention

The scene now runs through city schools and community groups. Madrid has a dedicated school, Madrid Shibari Dojo, which calls itself a traditional school of shibari and kinbaku for Madrid and Spain. It says it is part of the Kinbaku Society of Berlin and distributes that society’s magazine, published every three months. Rope also reaches a general audience in the capital: at Japan Weekend Madrid, a pop-culture convention held at IFEMA, the association Madrid Ropes runs free beginner workshops and shibari performances on the adults-only stage, with a program listed for February 2027.

Barcelona has artist-led collectives, a rope jam run by a group of enthusiasts every Sunday afternoon and a venue that sells multi-session courses; its guide traces how they developed.

A festival in Valencia

Valencia adds a studio and a festival. Shibari Valencia Fest is announced for 21 to 23 May 2027 as a three-day program with three invited educators, workshops for beginners and experienced practitioners, performances and informal practice meetups. Its 2026 edition ran over three days in May at a venue near the city, and the local studio Reisei Studio organized its performance night; the Valencia guide covers both, and the rope festival entry explains the format.

How the cities relate

The three city guides show teachers working across city lines: Alberto Noshibari’s career runs through both Madrid and Barcelona, and the first visits of Osada Steve and Naka Akira that these sources record were to Barcelona and Madrid respectively. The school and festival pages cited here are in Spanish. How Spain fits into the wider European story of touring teachers and lineages is told in Kinbaku in Europe, and Rope when you travel explains how to approach a scene in an unfamiliar city.