Most of the days since I returned from Brussels have been occupied with doings at nameless. Scraping, vacuuming (it survived), sweeping, laying dance floor, making the vast recital room ready for working in. Dasniya cut some holes, drilled a bit, installed hardware, ropes, a hammock.
We are not alone, of course. Each day something happens here; a concert, a performance, people sitting in the sun, a Gaggia espresso machine … wandering people look through the windows or open the door, to see us in ropes, or with tea.
Yoga to start as always. Then ropes. Dasniya makes some attention for Arisue Go’s methods of the basic chest harness. Visually, it’s subtly different from Osada Steve’s, but practically in how it’s tied and in the methodological understanding behind the tying, it’s quite a different thing altogether.
We make small floor suspensions. This is in fact the perfect way to learn how to suspend, as there is no panic or need for haste when someone’s weight is largely remaining on the floor. It also gives room for improvising with other ropes, as well as being in itself a very enjoyable way of tying.
I’ve been thinking about … perhaps to call it contingent shibari. What happens when the rope turns up in your hands in a spaghetti bird’s nest mess? One could simply pause, reassert some order on the rope, and continue with the previous path. I wondered what would happen if I skipped the first two parts, and continued as though nothing was amiss.
It is a visual aesthetic similar perhaps to when one finds rope of miscellaneous diameters, lengths, colour and material washed up on a beach, perhaps with some netting or other assorted detritus; a knotwork evolved from accumulation. It turns out also that shibari ropework, dependent as it is on friction and an absence of knots, lends itself well to this.
Hartmut turns up shortly before 4pm, with small kettle and the implements of Japanese tea ceremony. We sit in the sun of the windows as he whisks the green powder into froth.
We talk about what a perfect place this is, with the light in the afternoon, the derelict buildings turned to something that sits so lightly upon their skin, it will hardly notice when we all depart for the last time. For now, spring, summer, some of autumn, this will be where we make some performances, workshops, classes … will be found in deep discussion near the black sofas of the bar …
Some photos.
