Workshop: Sunday, May 8th, 3-5pm.
General Admission: $25, $20 for ASK Members
Couples: $40, $30 for ASK Members
All participants and instructors must be fully masked.
Masha and Margherita will offer a rope workshop focused on some of the basic skills both technically and relationally. They believe Shibari is first and foremost a practice in connection, a deliberate conversation between vulnerabilities, and a possible place for growth. Their classes always include these themes, to remind everyone involved that technique in applying rope is not enough, without developing deep embodied listening. Shibari, or Japanese-style rope bondage, is, however, an inherently high-risk practice that requires skills and dedication to be used with the highest degree of safety. Masha brings her experience of 4 years tying regularly and studying with international teachers to help beginners figure out their way around foundational ties. Margherita brings her several years of experience as a rope bottom and two decades of somatic work to help those receiving rope understand their risks and take safe actions. Together they hope to take participants through a journey of discovery that awakens curiosity and responsibility for this beautiful practice.
Margherita has been working on embodiment in and out of rope for two decades. Rope has been a friend for almost 10 years, and a fundamental practice for the past 3. She brings her expertise in embodiment, somatics, trauma-informed practices, and mindfulness to the experience of rope as mainly a bottom and more recently as a learning rigger. She is passionate about sharing information around trauma, pain science, vulnerable conditions such as hypermobility, neurodivergence and addiction with communities of all kinds, from movement studios to colleges to prisons. She co-founded Temple in Brooklyn, New York in 2019.
Masha has been tying regularly for 4 years, learning with international teachers through workshops and private instruction and dedicating her free time to practicing regularly with multiple people. Safety on all levels is a skill she cultivates through consent negotiations as well as precise technique. She brings a unique ability to hold space for human suffering and discomfort, learnt through two decades of work as a midwife and her current pursuit of becoming a facilitator for psychedelic-assisted therapy.
Masha and Margherita started tying together right before the Pandemic hit us and managed to use the time-outside-of-time of 2020 to build the foundation of their rope relationship and their mission in sharing this work. Since then they have created video work, an extensive photographic archive, and performed live for drawing salons and informal presentations. They are currently collaborating on a live durational performance merging Butoh, dance, and shibari, and they are starting their teaching collaboration, focusing on sharing the art of rope from a connective, vulnerable, and trauma-informed perspective.
