Embodied Art Studio, working with Bondage N Boston, is committed to lifting up local teachers and bringing in teachers from around the country to help build the capacity of our community. We hope that you’ll find these deep-dives provide opportunities to dwell on a topic, to dissect it, and to integrate it into your own evolving practice.
Something Like Flight
with Demo and Lucky
Days & Times: September 26 & 27, 1:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Cost: $300/pair; $100 auditor if space allows
Description:
This weekend of workshops is intended to get you from the floor into the floating space of partial suspensions. We will spend time drilling, chatting, watching, and trying. All bodies belong in this space, and any harnesses/ shapes “taught” can and will be adjusted to the bodies who are in them!
Saturday will be a day of labbing upper (tengu) and lower body (half basket) suspendable harness options.
Sunday, we will tackle bamboo lock-offs, practice load testing harnesses, and find movement under the point.
We conclude with partial suspension–using a simple static shape where bottom-led movement and harness options chart a branching decision tree for further exploration.
Weekend Pre-reqs
For pairs:
Foundational understanding of negotiation for play including the development of risk profiles individually and in your specific relational ecosystem.
For those tying:
Solid preliminary understanding of rope, including single column, double column, forward and reverse tension, hojo cuffs, rope handling, frictions. You should feel comfortable with the idea of learning new harnesses without step by step instructions on the building blocks (we will not be going into depth on the how or why of hojo cuffs, column ties, or frictions in this class).
For those being tied:
Comfortability with communicating in rope, understanding of physical or mental limitations/access points. Understanding of hand-checks for nerve monitoring.
About Demo and Lucky
Demo (he/him) is a queer/trans disabled Western MA based artist, harm reductionist, and kinkster. His kink practice exists in a political space where the boundary project of relating to others and their bodies in expansive ways takes shape. Demo has been practicing rope bondage as a switch for over 6 years, and is most interested in how rope can engage in dialogue with bodies through exposure, suffering, and tenderness. His focus in kink and art is on the body and its capacity to absorb/create/transform. Demo has had the opportunity to teach rope bondage across the country, and his work has been featured in a variety of S/M publications.
Lucky (they/them) is a 28 year old, chronically ill, non binary rope bottom from Southern Vermont. They are also a farmer, a writer, a lover, a fighter, and a life long learner. They were first put into rope 6ish years ago with no idea how deeply they would fall in love with suspension. For Lucky, the experience of being in rope is a welcome practice of letting go of control and entering their body, playing with threat to better understand safety.