Written on May 21, 2012 by frances

Jute Disintegration – After …

A bike across to Kreuzberg in the morning after some demonic infestations before breakfast, to pick up a very special camera from the darling Christian. Among other things, today was my first time using a proper DSLR (for those who drool, a Canon EOS 5D mkII, with 24-70mm lens). That in itself was enough to keep me occupied with discovering how a proper lens swings between depth of field sublimity and mayhem. I have to get one of these…

After last week, preparing this time was somewhat more orderly, though we moved everything but the sofas out of the space, and seemed to have more of everything, though taking up less space. The same group again, Antek, Andreas, Rui, Monica, Ursula, Hartmut, Dasniya, and myself. Me mostly being outside photographing and occasionally making something with the rope, Hartmut making tea (no, he is not Teapot), and the other six dealing with the table.

Dispensing with a warmup, once we’d got through costumes and makeup, and were sitting around the table discussing last and this week, come 17h the ‘audience’ promptly arrived. Very prompt.

We’d talked about having an hour or so on our own to get things going, and so expected their arrival around 18h, and for people to come and go more like in a gallery. So, taken by surprise and the number of people who wandered in right on time, and finding it being regarded more as a performance than installation, we decided in future we’ll never mention the time we’re starting at, just sticking to from when anyone should make an appearance.

It got off to a fast start then, being nothing like some nerves to focus attention. And yes, by 18h when we’d hoped people would show up, it was getting decidedly interesting, with two long ‘scenes’ dominating the final hour.

Maybe to mention the limitations, as this was a rehearsal of sorts. It would be really nice to do this in Uferhallen proper, the vast space and us populating it, giving a background that is both visually interesting, a very specific light from above combined with blue-grey, concrete, oily steel colours, as well as the void between us and it. This space is vital to be able to create some balance between absence and objects across all scales.

The lighting also is obviously not so nice. Even a few cans from above would pull focus and shape the room and action. A few more and that would be all that’s necessary to attain a heightened sense of otherness in what’s being observed. It doesn’t need a huge rig and multiple states, but it really does need attention to this.

And obviously hiring some baroque costume frippery and a grass floor (and the occasional goat) would round it out nicely.

We tried without any sound this time, just that of Hartmut making tea, and this also seemed to leave the room too empty, with nothing for us to sit on. It might be appropriate to mic the space and then process the audio so it’s not intrusive and somehow can be sensed to come from the room.

As for what went on, the performance, installation, the people in it … this was so qualitatively far from last week. There were some quite excellent arrangements, scenes, progressions, starting especially from when Rui mimicked Dasniya on the floor, both suspending one arm. This was about the end of the first hour, so it seems it does take that long to build a bit of mess in the space and get through the establishing of everything.

Ursula wandering out to have a cigarette, causing a few people to follow her to see what was going on … Rui tying Antek over the table while Ursula read from The Soft Machine, “cocks ejaculating, soap in asses, cocks shooting like fireworks in the sun …” and so on (I later swapped it for Negarestani’s Cyclonopaedia, which was even stranger), with Andreas, Dasniya and Monica sitting along the wall next to Hartmut – this scene went on for a while and became decidedly uncanny in its stillness with the text.

Antek remained there till the end, joined by others at various times, and in somewhat symmetry by two suspended at the other end of the table. Many other smaller things interspersed.

This then, was our first attempt at an anarchic unshibari installation/performance. There’s a lot we could continue with, and shambling towards putting it in a proper big space with all the required accoutrements would be very nice.

(And very many thanks to the unshibari-ists who spent the last two Sundays in a mess of ropes to try this all out!)

Jute Disintegration – Books and ropes on table

Jute Disintegration – Rui

Jute Disintegration – Hartmut and tea

Jute Disintegration – Andreas’ wrist

Jute Disintegration – Hartmut and Dasniya

Jute Disintegration – Beginning, eating

Jute Disintegration – Andreas, foliage

Jute Disintegration – The table and reading

Jute Disintegration – Legs

Jute Disintegration – The table and reading again

Jute Disintegration – Ursula

Jute Disintegration – The table, Dasniya, Hartmut

Jute Disintegration – Reading, listening, suspense

Jute Disintegration – Andreas, Antek

Jute Disintegration – Suspended with table

Jute Disintegration – The entire mess

Jute Disintegration – mess again

Written on January 12, 2012 by frances

Thomas & Dasniya Shibari

The last time I saw Thomas, he had a mass of dreads. That was in Adelaide. Last week he arrived in Berlin (though he was here in November also but missed thanks to one incorrect digit in a phone number), and we have been hanging around ever since. He is now minus hair, and has acquired a fearsome beard, and with boots is taller than me.

The last two weeks also, he has been coming to Dasniya’s regular Wednesday night yoga and shibari classes, and was so taken by being suspended last week he’s probably going to come back next week also.

This week Dasniya demonstrated a three-fold tying, starting with a more traditional figure, one from Arisue Go where the hands are in prayer position behind the back and the arms are bound , then lying on the floor and suspending a body part or parts, and thirdly our anarchic messy tying.

Thomas got lucky and Dasniya showed this on him, and then I got lucky having him tie me, later joined by Dasniya, and more than an hour and an half later was loosened from the ropes.

Some photos …

Dasniya and Thomas Shibari – 1

Dasniya and Thomas Shibari – 2

Dasniya and Thomas Shibari – 3

Dasniya and Thomas Shibari – 4

Dasniya and Thomas Shibari – 5

Dasniya and Thomas Shibari – 6

Written on January 2, 2012 by frances

Yoga + Shibari in Berlin, January

Yoga and Shibari begins again this week in Teatris from this Wednesday evening. Also becoming a monthly regular is the weekend workshop, this month doing self-suspension. Much fun in ropes! Details are below, and you can also email Dasniya for further information.

Weekly Yoga & Shibari

Jeden Mittwoch Yoga & Shibari im Wedding. 4., 11., 18., 25. Januar, 19-23 Uhr.

Ort: Uferhallen Kulturwerkstatt, Teatris, Alte Kantine, Uferstr. 8-11, 13357 Berlin,
U8 Pankstr/U9 Osloerstr.

Kosten 20/15 Euro

Every Wednesday there will be Yoga & Shibari in Berlin-Wedding. January 4th, 11th, 18th, 25th.

Location: Uferhallen Kulturwerkstatt, Teatris, Alte Kantine, Uferstr. 8-11, 13357 Berlin,
U8Pankstr/ U9 Osloerstr.

Costs: 20/15 Euro

Workshop text english

Self-Suspension Workshop

Am Sonntag den 22. Januar von 14-20 Uhr. In diesem Kurs behalten alle die Seile in den eigenen Händen. Wir üben quasi Aerial-Multitasking. Dazu gehören Seil- und Atemtechniken mit physischen Intensitäten, Entspannungsmomenten und Kraft zu koordinieren… Knotentechnisch verwenden wir traditionelles, und unseren liebgewonnen Anarchostil*.

Kosten 40 Euro. Anmeldung und Info: email hidden; JavaScript is required

Self-Suspension Workshop in January, on Sunday 22nd, 2pm-8pm.
We will take apart the complex act of self-suspension. Coordinating rope technique, strength, breath, relaxation and physical intensities in the air, using traditional knots and our beloved anarchic style*.

Costs: 40 Euro. More information and registration: email hidden; JavaScript is required

Written on November 10, 2011 by frances

Shibari/Bondage Workshop at Bains Connective, Brussels

Once more to Brussels, this time somewhere new.

Dasniya and I have been working around the edges of a performance/installation for a while, as well as I’ve been talking with the beautiful Michael and his bassoon in Guangzhou about something to take there. The immediate result of this is we two shall be at Bains Connective in Brussels for two weeks working with as many ropes as we can procure, and with all the ideas circulating for the last year.

On the last Friday, December 9th, we’ll be having a showing or performance of whatever we’ve got up to (more on that shortly), and on the weekend of December 10th and 11th, there will be a Yoga and Shibari workshop at Bains. Some details below, and more in Shibari/Bondage Bains Announcement (.pdf).

Shibari/Bondage Workshop Brussels December With Dasniya Sommer
When: December 10th & 11th, Saturday & Sunday from 12 – 18 h
Where: Bains Connective, Bondgenotenstraat 54 rue des Alliés,1190 Vorst/
Forest
Costs: Registration until November 10th: 100 €, after November 10th: 120 €
Further Information: dasniyasommer.de and supernaut.info/tag/dasniya-sommer

Shibari/Bondage — Bains Connective

Written on October 24, 2011 by frances

Dasniya Sommer Yoga & Shibari in Wedding, November + Brussels Project

Now there is a beautiful space to make yoga and shibari in once more, with kitchen, things to hang from, and sit in … we have been in TEATRIS, in the old BVG Kantine in Uferstrasse for the last some weeks.

Besides the regular weekly evening classes, there will be a weekend workshop on rope technique — tying figures, suspensions — at the end of November. Then we spend two weeks at Bains Connective in Brussels working on a rope installation, and also will have a weekend workshop there in mid-December.

Earlier this year, I was teaching morning yoga in Wedding, and still get regular requests for this. I’m not yet teaching again, but for anyone who would like a weekly evening yoga class in English, it’s also possible to come along on Wednesdays just for the yoga, from 19-20:45 — a beginners/intermediate Iyengar-style class.

So:

Weekly Yoga and Shibari, every Wednesday from 19:00-23:00 in Wedding
Weekly Yoga, every Wednesday from 19:00-2045 in Wedding
A Shibari workshop on Sunday, 20th November from 14:00-20:00 in Wedding
A Shibari weekend workshop, 10/11 December from 12:00-18:00 each day in Brussels
A performance, The n+2 Dimensional Space for n>1, December 9th, in Brussels

More information here:

For English and please scroll down.

____________________________________________________________

Liebe Leute,
1) im Oktober geht es wöchentlich weiter mit Yoga & Shibari. Wir turnen und seilen jeden Mittwoch (2./9./16./23.) von 19-23 Uhr.

Location: Uferhallen Kulturwerkstatt/Teatris // Kosten 20/15 Euro // genaue Adresse siehe unten.

2) Die Yogaklasse kann unabhängig vom Shibari/Bondage Teil besucht werden. Immer Mitwochs (2./9./16./23.), 19-20.45 Uhr. Kosten 10 € Kursbeschreibung unter http://dasniyasommer.de/#yoga, Location: Uferhallen Kulturwerkstatt/Teatris // Kosten 10 Euro // genaue Adresse s.u.

NeueinsteigerInnen sind herzlich willkommen. Bitte schreibt eine kurze mail an email hidden; JavaScript is required.

3) Shibari Technik Workshop in Berlin für jene, die nur Knotentechnik lernen/weiterentwickeln möchten. Wann: 20. November, 14-20 Uhr, Uferhallen Kulturwerkstatt/ Teatris. Kosten: 40 Euro. Genaue Adresse siehe unten.

4) Performance: ‘Der n+2 dimensionale Raum für n>1′. Ein installatives Shibari Projekt von Frances d’Ath und Dasniya Sommer. Entstanden während einer zweiwöchigen Performance Residenz in Brüssel/ Art Bains Connective. Öffentliches Showing: 9.Dezember 2011, Genaue Adresse s.u.

5) Yoga & Shibari Workshop Brüssel: Wochenende 10./11. Dezember 2011, 12-18 Uhr im Art Bains Connective. Anmeldungen bis 10. November 100 €, nach dem 10. November 120 €

Studio Location für alle Berliner Klassen:
**TEATRIS HALLENPROJEKT IN DEN UFERHALLEN // UFERSTR 8-11 // 13357 BERLIN U8 PANKSTR/U9 OSLOERSTR // KOSTEN 20 €

Von der Badstraße kommend sind die Uferhallen auf der rechten Straßenseite.

Location für Veranstaltungen in Brüssel:

**BAINS CONNECTIVE // BONDGENOTENSTRAAT 54 // 1190 VORST // BRÜSSEL

Mehr Infos in den Anhängen und unter:

www.dasniyasommer.de
Kursbeschreibung: Yoga und Shibari

City of Women Festival 2011

Foto: Predrag Pajdic

____________________________________________________________

Dear People,

1) in November ‘Yoga & Shibari’ continues weekly. We will stretch and braid every Wednesday from 7-11pm. Dates: 2./9./16./23. Location: Teatris Studio- Uferhallen Kulturwerkstatt. Detailed address and workshop information please see below.

2) Yoga can be practiced independently from the Shibari/ Bondage part. Every Wednesday 2./9./16./23. November, 19-8.45 pm. Location: Teatris Studio- Uferhallen Kulturwerkstatt. Detailed Location see below. Costs 10 Euro. More class content at Yoga.

New people and Shibari beginners are welcome! Please write a short email to email hidden; JavaScript is required

3) Shibari Technique Workshop in Berlin for those who want to learn/develop rope technique. When Nov. 20th, 14-20 Uhr, Uferhallen Kulturwerkstatt/ Teatris. Costs: 40 Euro.

4) Performance: ‘The n+2 dimensional Space for n>1′. A Shibari installation by Frances d’Ath and Dasniya Sommer. Creation at Art Bains Connective during a two week residency in Bruxelles. Public showing: December 9th, 2011, please find the address below.

5) Yoga & Shibari Workshop Bruxelles: Weekend 10th/11th December 2011, 12-6 pm at Art Bains Connective

Registration until November 10th: 100 €, after November 10th: 120 €

Studio location for workshops in Berlin:
**TEATRIS HALLENPROJEKT IN DEN UFERHALLEN // UFERSTR 8-11 // 13357 BERLIN U8 PANKSTR/U9 OSLOERSTR // KOSTEN 20 €

Coming from Badstraße, you find the Uferhallen compound on the right side of the street. Turn right after the big gate, and follow the lines on the map attached

Venue Bruxelles:

**BAINS CONNECTIVE // BONDGENOTENSTRAAT 54 // 1190 VORST // BRÜSSEL

Yoga and Shibari Workshop Description (pdf)

TEATRIS weg zur alten Kantine

Written on September 15, 2011 by frances

yoga + shibari in teatris hallenprojekt

(A very quick post because I’m being whipped by the sigil of lucifer …)

After wandering across Berlin for the previous months, Dasniya’s Yoga & Shibari classes arrived on a new floor last night – one very close to home. I wonder if the BVG ever imagined their Uferstrasse workshop Kantine would be used for Japanese rope bondage?

The floor is very nice to work on, having been laid down at some time in the past explicitly for dance. Also being a canteen, there is a kitchen and many comfortable chairs, sofas, tables. And a courtyard garden! This is all being used by TEATRIS, who have been very accommodating with our tendency to approach any new space with Schlagbohrer. Upon which we’ve been stymied, as the false drop-ceiling hides another, thicker concrete drop-ceiling, above which there is almost 2 meters of emptiness – which is an impending adventure in itself.

Class was very enjoyable, with many regulars turning up, a couple last seen in Brussels, and a few new faces. It’s also nice to be back in the neighbourhood.

Yoga + Shibari at Teatris

Written on September 2, 2011 by frances

Madrid rehearsals day 5 – casa de campo

Today was the last day of us together as the foursome rehearsing. Instead of going into the studio, we arose early – 7am, and caught a bus to Casa de Campo. Many bags, some pastries and other food, a suitcase of ropes, cameras. We made shibari in the dry grass, trees, bushes … For now the photos are for us, not even sorted or made sense of, but some I thought are nice to be here, maybe that find something of the feeling of the day.

a tree in casa de campo

michael, gala, dasniya, suitcase of ropes

ants taking breakfast for a walk

moss, branch, rope

tree bondage

Written on August 9, 2011 by frances

bondage japonés Madrid con Dasniya Sommer

Dasniya and I will be in Madrid later this month for some adventures with dance. Also there will be a weekend workshop. Here are all the details:

Taller bondage japonés con Dasniya Sommer

Cuándo: 27 y 28 de agosto de 2011
Horario: 12:00 – 18:00 (1h para comer)
Dónde: “Laboratorio de Fantasmas” c/ Santiago Estévez, 29; 3º D. Madrid

Precio taller: 70 €

Inscripción en cualquiera de las 2 direcciones:
en español / inglés: email hidden; JavaScript is required
en inglés / alemán: email hidden; JavaScript is required

El taller se llevará a cabo en inglés con traducción al español.

Para más información sobre japonés bondage:
http://www.dasniyasommer.de
http://supernaut.info/tag/dasniya-sommer

Organización:
Dita Bi Teese email hidden; JavaScript is required
Laboratorio de Fantasmas email hidden; JavaScript is required http://josemariaponce.blogspot.com

Shibari-Technique Workshop with Dasniya Sommer

When: August 27th & 28th 2011, 12-6pm
Where: Laboratorio de Fantasmas Santiago Estévez 29 3oD Madrid

Costs: 70 €

Registration:
For Spanish/English speakers: email hidden; JavaScript is required
For English/German speakers: email hidden; JavaScript is required

The workshop will be held in English with translation to Spanish

Further Information:
http://www.dasniyasommer.de
http://supernaut.info/tag/dasniya-sommer

Descripción del taller de su descarga en Español: Taller de técnicas de shibari con Dasniya Sommer Madrid 2011
Download workshop description in English: Shibari Workshop, Madrid, August 2011, Dasniya Sommer

Written on July 19, 2011 by frances

Brussels yoga + shibari last four days & photoshoot

The absence of writing since Wednesday should indicate how involved the workshop was. Yes, finished, on to more rope things. It’s a pity I didn’t manage to keep writing each day, as much happened I thought worth remarking on.

Thursday and Friday were the last two days of the Yoga and Shibari week workshop. The weekend was for a more advanced rope techniques workshop culminating Sunday night in a photoshoot in Charleroi/Danses ground-floor workspace in La Raffinerie. Many of those who came during the week stayed on for the weekend, and we were joined by a few new arrivals also.

I’ll try to summarise a bit my memories and impressions of these days rather than any doomed-to-failure chronology. Perhaps to start by saying seven days of rope work usually stretching over eight hours for Dasniya and I left us both dead tired and exhilarated. I have a repeated feeling we are on to something really interesting (which I’ll write about more in the coming days for the other project which keeps me in Brussels). I think to say categorically what we are doing is both very much not shibari and also very much exactly this.

I was reading an interview by Osada Steve with Akechi Denki, where he says, “shibari is communication between two people using the medium of rope. It’s a connection made with rope between the hearts of two people.” While he also says this in the context of SM, and refers to traditional roles of dominance and submission in a heterosexual context, I think nonetheless this comes to a central aspect of shibari: it is a communication wherein the rope is the intermediary.

And so to find a language. Perhaps this is why there is a lot of shibari I can appreciate for certain individual aesthetic qualities, but as a whole find it not so engaging. There is an absence of communication. Instead there is representation, either of specific figures or of scenes and roles—fantasies which are preformed, or of mimicry. But this is not communication, or perhaps not a communication of an especially sophisticated kind.

It occurred to me that what happens in the workshops and classes is a method of teaching communication, drawing up of the grammar and semantics. It is a process of reiteration and refinement, that is as much for us as teachers as it is for those who attend, a project of learning.

One task on the weekend was attending to a grid/web of rope we had spread along one wall, through the frames around the heaters. Into this we worked ropes methodically, starting with the basic knot, then with blumen—flowers which any climber would recognise as a munter hitch, which can be done in several ways, each producing a different visual result as well as being suited for different circumstances. Then with the simple direction change, which is a half-hitch done along the length of a rope allowing the working rope to securely add tension to the bound rope as well as to change direction.

The familiarity that comes from repetition allows for complex figures to be verbally described, though what is interesting in such a simple exersise is the aesthetic values each person gives—some almost formal geometric patterns; others far into the wilds of chaos; still others balancing and weighting the workspace, resulting in something looking almost as if it had occurred naturally.

Sunday night we descended from the loft into the ground floor space—thick silver pillars two storeys high, windowless and dim, lit with a handful of stage lights on tripods that later would creep around the room, illuminating the goings-on. First though, a group dinner.

Around midnight, we left the venue after seven days for the last time, still thrilled from what had gone on. How can words or pictures imagine or explain it? Fourteen people in costumes on blankets, chairs, pallets, beneath a series of rings hung from the ceiling—some just for decoration, others put to use, warm light flooding the small area which we occupied, all with ropes. Unlike everyone else, I was outside photographing, though wishing I could be inside somewhere. Perhaps one or two of these photos will find their way here. If not, then it is nonetheless something for us.

Written on July 12, 2011 by frances

brussels yoga + shibari first days

Two days already passed. We are back in the beautiful loft studio in Charleroi/Danses La Raffinerie, arriving early yesterday to hang some rings and sort out yoga mats, cut some spare rope and other things, then to yoga. Barely a break was taken before 18h came around, and so off to the Monday market at the Saint-Gilles commune. Sadly, no raw milk. Happily, Gala had already bought some.

Today arriving a little later, finding Lewis on the tram in the morning, some fruit to be bought along the way. Fig season again, but too early for them to be properly ripe. Still, now I plan for the lamb and fig tajine again.

Yoga. Tomorrow I shall be teaching, and wondering about what kind of series to make that excludes pressure on the hands. Perhaps a lot of standing poses and balances. Dasniya is making some nice series of standing poses and sun salutes, and I find my upper thigh muscles noticing the effort today.

I’ve been particularly thinking about the position of the pelvis in various lunges, for example the warrior – Virabhadrasana – wondering whether to ignore it or try and retain some kind of neutral pelvis alignment. It becomes a mobile, sliding and shifting thing; complex enough I could probably spend a couple of years just shuffling it ever so slightly this way and that.

We have been doing rope work that feels like something from the past. The last time we really worked with traditional figures like takatekote was during Parsifal, and especially since then the improvised stuff – single rope, messiness, floor-based stuff has come to be what we do almost exclusively. To return to chest harnesses and suspensions feels curious. It’s certainly fun, and for some people the entire point of shibari. It’s also limiting though, as it tends to be a race through the ropes to get the figure done and get to hanging – almost like chasing a fix.

We are also giving a lot in a very short time. How to summarise a year of ideas in five days? What to pay attention to? what are people interested in? Tomorrow we will work more with the new stuff, see what this brings.

It is also very nice to see people who have been around our workshops before; some from La Monnaie, some from last year at La Raffinerie. The group varies between 14 and 17 so in itself is a lot of people to work with. For the weekend some will leave and some others will arrive. And then we shall make some more photos also.

It feels slightly vague writing this, as though I haven’t said anything significant about the days so far, just writing to fill up words. It is very satisfying and demanding to be teaching a big workshop again, also doing what I enjoy – working with bodies and people, experimenting with things, in a way dancing.

roofline over brussels

lewis lunch, cheese bread coffee

tying the cinches on gota shibari

lewis suspense

supernaut

i whored for art…

Tag Archives: Bondage