Portland

The Portland scene

Portland’s rope scene combines a rope education group, a club that serves as the shared venue for community events, and a private studio linked to a Tokyo school. How rope spread across the United States is told in Kinbaku in North America.

A peer group and a shared club

Rope Arts Group PDX describes its purpose as rope bondage education and the sharing of what members know. Its information page describes meetings with questions, demonstrations and discussion, followed by practice, and says attendees may split into a fundamentals class for beginners, an intermediate class and a free-form practice group it calls the Chaos group. It makes clear that its meetings are for learning, not play parties, invites people to interrupt and ask questions, and thanks Lee Harrington as an inspiration. In 2025 the group met on second Saturday afternoons at Sanctuary Club as a daytime jam that opened with a beginner class on ties such as the single column, an easy chest harness and the futomomo. It was meant for tying pairs and self-tyers and did not match solo attendees with partners. The group billed it as Portland’s only fully accessible rope jam, since the venue has an elevator.

Sanctuary Club, an adults-only venue (21 and over), carries several other rope series. MxBliss produces the Boundless Rope Experience, a monthly drop-in afternoon with an hour-long class, open practice and a closing circle. The producer, who identifies as a queer femme person of color, welcomes everyone but focuses the series on people who are underrepresented in rope, including queer, trans and POC people. The series is sober, offers scholarship and volunteer places to people who cannot pay, and requires reinforced jute or hemp or a rated synthetic rope for uplines. Knotty Acts, a showcase night, mixes shibari and aerial acts with a photo gallery, sampler ties and open floor tying for guests; suspensions are reserved for the performers.

A studio in the Kinoko lineage

Portland Shibari Salon is a private studio in the Southwest Hills that calls itself inclusive and consent-forward. It has a main studio with hardwood floors, a tatami room, eight suspension points, four suspension bamboos and a hashira, with floor space for sixteen tying pairs. Jonathan Ryan, who also works as Seattle Shibari, holds a high-level teaching license from his mentor Hajime Kinoko of Tokyo and travels to Japan every year to keep studying; the salon says he has taught and performed in fifteen countries. He co-directs the salon with Sappho, a physician specializing in neuroanatomy who brings a background in Latin dance to her rope. They offer weekly private lessons, small group workshops kept small for individual feedback, rope jams and photo sessions. Seattle Shibari’s work spans both cities; see the Seattle page.

Finding your way in

The groups’ and venues’ websites are in English. Sanctuary admits adults 21 and over only, and the Boundless Rope Experience asks that all partnered rope be negotiated in advance. For the difference between a jam and a class, see Rope jams, munches and salons.