PREFACE EURIX operates at the intersection of Japanese-inspired rope bondage and contemporary European bondage culture. It situates the Japanese tradition in the European context and develops it into something of our own, on a technical as well as on an artistic and social level. To ensure the quality of teaching at EURIX we ask that our presenters —both riggers and models— to keep in mind our overarching goals of creativity, interdisciplinarity and rigorous academic integrity while they craft their content for the festival.

Bondage is living sculpture, dynamic composition, theatrical process, sensual encounter, and intimate communication. Its fascination lies in this complexity. At EURIX, we therefore explore the practice of rope bondage in open-ended processes, welcoming above all the technical, aesthetic, and conceptual ideas and innovations that represent the cultural abundance of the European context, while investigating their potential to enrich the Japanese tradition. In addition to reinterpreting and expanding traditional practice, we therefore especially encourage creative experimentation, research, unconventional approaches and interdisciplinary thinking: the courage to take artistic risks and the pleasure to fail. We also attach particular importance to an intensive engagement with the affective and interpersonal aspects of the practice, creating the tools for a powerful exploration of emotional landscapes and for the deepening of a culture of communication, collaboration, and consent. We strive to understand the parameters of a potentially transformative experience —to master magic!

The popularity of rope bondage in Europe continues to explode. For many people, bondage seems to represent a pleasurable exploration of their own and other people’s bodies. Bondage allows access to creative work, to expression, to play, and to intense human encounters. Bondage also inspires many people to explore artistic practices such as performance or photography for the first time. Since its beginnings, EURIX aims to present the artistically engaged side of the European community and to develop rope bondage as an art form as well as a profound social practice.

In order to keep the quality of teaching at EURIX high, I have formulated some guidelines for the invited workshop leaders* and artists*. This is an unfinished list, please feel free to contact me and express your own ideas and opinions!

TEACHING AS RESEARCH
 Bondage is a practice and is taught through practice. Don’t show people the fabulous stuff you can do, help them to do it themselves. In many conventional rope classes, there is too much talk and too much demonstration. A presenter has to be particularly entertaining and verbally brilliant to captivate an audience for more than 15 minutes. Learning does not take place by listening and observing, but above all by actively doing. A good rope workshop gives the participants room to practice, in order to experience the presented material and to adapt it to their own abilities and those of the model. The techniques shown should not only work with a specific model but offer practical tools for every body. We experience bondage as a collaboration, a co-creation with clearly defined roles, with partners who need and complement each other. We therefore believe that the rigger and model need to be equally engaged in the teaching process. As the roles of rigger and model require different skills, we also place particular emphasis on developing specific learning content for both perspectives. Classes take place at eye level between teachers and students. The instructors test their material on the group and learn themselves in the process. We especially encourage non-hierarchical forms of teaching, such as thematic research groups, open questions with exchange of approaches, moderated discussion groups, etc. Switching roles should always be possible in a class.

CREATIVITY
 EURIX wants to offer bondage classes in which participants learn something new, something they have never seen or experienced before. This can only happen if instructors invent and present their own material and do not just reproduce knots and patterns of other practitioners. We consider bondage as an art form in contrast to pure handicraft. Artisans copy a given form, artists reinterpret or reappropriate what they learned, add their own touch to it and develop their own material. At EURIX we favor ingenuity and compatibility: artistically compelling patterns and techniques, transferable technical tools and conceptual solutions that can be applied individually and to every body.

Note: To avoid any misunderstanding: I think it makes perfect sense for beginners to spend some time with a structured, self-contained method or codified style of the Japanese tradition, in order to get a feeling for the interplay of the various parameters —such as the nature of the rope, the anatomy of the body, the distribution of pressure and weight— all the various technical aspects. It makes perfect sense to study these elements by means of working examples. However, all longer and more intensive practitioners will quickly realize that certain restraints cannot simply be transferred to any body in a standardized way.

INTERDISCIPLINARITY 
Creativity seeks inspiration and needs the ability to think outside of the box. Creative rope instructors research in foreign fields of knowledge and fuse the insights gained there with their own competences and practices. They are curious about the work of others. They also like to slip into the role of the learner. They bring skills from their personal or professional experience, engage in artistic practices, and are interested in related subject areas such as anatomy, bodywork, neuroscience, psychology, sociology, architecture, physics, and others.

AFFECT AND RELATIONALITY 
What is happening there, between two (or more) people? What role do feelings and sensations play? Bondage is more than just pretty knots and spectacular suspensions, it is neither decoration nor circus. Ideally, bondage is an encounter that makes emotional processes visible, that can stand as a metaphor for relationships in general, that evokes contradictory feelings, that investigates power and powerlessness, that questions pleasure and suffering, that reinterprets presence and aliveness. The emotional and relational aspects of bondage should be reflected upon in class and can be teaching contents in their own right.

THE THEATRICAL ASPECT 
If we consider bondage as the creation of a living sculpture, both the formal-aesthetic and the performative-living are essential. As with all artistic practices, it is not enough to simply copy a template. An artistic process —and that is exactly what every rope session is— needs expression with the technique remaining in the background. Like the structural elements of architecture that ensure that a building does not collapse, bondage technique is a prerequisite but not the objective of bondage. A creative bondage class therefore does not limit itself to the formal, but also integrates the processual aspects of the practice. It deals with the temporal level, with action and pause, dynamics and rhythm —and thus approaches the dramaturgical and performative aspects of rope bondage. It asks about intentions and content, and addresses questions of meaning and narrative: What kind of story do we want to tell?

Note: EURIX understands the conflict between „free stylers” and “traditionalists” as obsolete. Can we agree that each bondage session is a unique, non-repeatable time-space event that is always based —in varying proportions— on both experience and intuition? That even the most creative, intuitive free-style riggers  fall back to a certain extent on what they have already experienced, and that even the most meticulous traditional bakushis will not get along without a minimum of improvisation and spontaneity? The parameters are too variable for each individual bondage. In the end, all that really matters is whether the bondage has an emotional and aesthetic effect. Does it do something to the model, to the rigger? Does it do something to us, as observers? Is it strong, touching, meaningful? Does it tell a story and is it alive?

GENDER PERSPECTIVES
 Progressive bondage refuses the sexist and heteronormative tendency of the bondage mainstream. In the Japanese tradition the model’s role as an active co-creator is often underrepresented, which is questionable in a European context. At the same time, the perception of a clear power relationship in traditional Japanese rope bondage is primarily a Western projection. The EURIX lecturer is aware that the stereotypical image of women as celebrated by many “traditionalist” riggers is boring. At EURIX we principally encourage switching the roles of rigger and model, and the questioning of gender stereotypes. Rope bondage is considered an opportunity to deconstruct and subversively reinterpret gender roles.

Note: One queer reading of rope bondage, for instance, would be to frame it not within the victim-perpetrator relation but to see it as a form of circlusion: The rigger as a mother, embracing, wrapping, rocking, and holding the model, while staying in the background. The model is the protagonist, occupying the center of the space and being the center of attention.

HUMBLENESS AND HUMOR
 Everything is copied from the Japanese masters, except the qualities that have always impressed me most in my experiences with Japanese culture: Humbleness and humor, modesty, sobriety, and subtleness. Not to put oneself on the pedestal, to admit mistakes, to respect the students, to credit one’s own influences. Not taking oneself and one’s ability so seriously. Showing gratitude.

Felix Ruckert, September 2022

Many thanks to Isabel de Sena, Micha Stella, Conor Aphilia and Tifereth for their feedback and input!!

-> web site EURIX Festival