Open Classes

Monthly Shibari Classes July

Shibari class Tuesday: July 15 + 29, 2025 at Haus Sommer / Uferhallen
Hours: 7-9.30pm

This Light – intermediate class is for folks with previous Shibari/Kinbaku experience.
We will start intuitively by following individual impulses with rope. When safety principles like body handling, rope management or friction become fluid, we move to more systematic ties. Floor play will gradually be taken to semi-suspension.
There is time to switch roles to deeper understand restriction from both perspectives. The roped experience, as well as the complex skill set of the rigger, in order to create meditative ties or sexy phantasies.

The class material and aesthetic is strongly inspired by Japanese Shibari artists such as Norio Sugiura, Kasumi Horai or Akira Naka. Dasniya has learned from them during several workshops and encounters in Europe and Asia. Another important teaching source is her professional dance and performance practice which includes collaborating with Roméo Castellucci, Florentina Holzinger or the collective Das Helmi. Continuously transforming the traditional ritual for stage or installations Dasniya has been an inspiring rope artist beyond the Berlin community since 20 years.

Location: Haus Sommer is located at Uferhallen Kulturwerkstatt. The atelier with tatami and tea kitchen allows suspension on bamboo for 4 couples. The small group size creates an intimate frame to explore Shibari for single participants, couples, or for small groups of peers.

If you are new to Shibari and interested in this class, please send a mail to the address below. It usually is possible to join, also as newbie. Because of the small group size, and Dasniya‘s approach to adapt to personal experience levels.

– Please bring soft, comfortable clothes and ropes if you have.
– Ideally you register with a partner. If you don‘t have a rope partner yet, there are often other solo participants to pair up with. There is also the possibility to watch the class or self-tie.
– Costs 30 Euro per person.

Mail: workshops(at)dasniyasommer(dot)de / Messenger: haussommer / Insta: Kinbaku Haus / WA: +49-174-393 70 49

Dates: 15 + 29.7.2025
Hours: 19-21.30h
Costs: 30 Euro per person (max. four couples)

Haus Sommer is located at Uferhallen Kulturwerkstatt – Wedding Uferstrasse 8,13357 Berlin. Entrance B6
In case the door is locked please call the number above.
Map here

In the picture: Eliko. Photographed by Werner Amann. Ropes: Dasniya.

Workshop series: Harness in motion

choreografie-tanz-dasniya-sommer-bondage-shibari-Kunst-yum-yum-ballhaus-ost-berlin-rope-dance-workshops-klassen-performance

The series ‚Harness in Motion‘ consists of three workshops this summer:

1. class: Navigating weight lightly – 27.6.25
2. class: Skin, ropes and trust – 22.7.25
3. class: Adrenalin: shibari fight club – date tba / in September

In this workshop we will connect bodily restriction with dynamic system of movements. Dasniya will open her vast dancers tool box to creatively expand the traditional shibari vocabulary. Rope harnesses will serve as anchor points and transform the classical top-bottom dynamic into playfully and intimately dancing with your partner in space. Note: This class is the second of a series of three classes that will explore this topic in depth. The classes build on each other but it is not obligatory to take all three of them.

For more information please contact: workshops(at)dasniyasommer.de
or register via: Karada House.

Dasniya Sommer is a Berlin-based choreographer and teacher who works in the range from performance to photography and video art, from Japanese Shibari to classical ballet. She examines movement and image from the perspective of the dancer. For 20 years Dasniya has practiced Japanese Shibari/Bondage stretching performative aesthetic categories, making shibari accessible to a wider and intersectional community.
 She tries to combine pure Japanese techniques (currently Akira Naka inspired) with an unconventional anarchic approach, often integrating objects or organic material into the process. 
Dasniya’s teaching is informed by her experience as a rigger and shibari model. Melting schools and philosophies from a great number of teachers such as Chanta Rose, Kamijoo Saki, Kasumi Hourai, Arisue Go, Akira Naka, Tamandua, Gestalta, and Norio Sugiura. She regularly teaches at ‘Haus Sommer’ her studio in Uferhallen Kulturwerkstatt, and a.o. at ImPulsTanz Vienna, Lismore’s Queer-Community/Australia, and Braunschweig University of Art. ‘Sculpting or moving with ropes I deeply enjoy the handcrafting moment combined with sensual attention towards my partner or the bondage material.‘

Photo by Pippa Samaya.

 

SHIBARI CLASS IN April

 

Shibari class Tuesday April 8th, 20th 2025
Hours: 7-9.30pm

The course Beginner with Previous Experience is directed at learning the basics of Shibari/Kinbaku technique. We start the class intuitively by following individual impulses with rope. After that we focus on systematic management of rope. On body handling and safety principles: knots, wrapping and aesthetic frictions. The material contains a wide range of harnesses for floor work and simple semi-suspension. It is strongly inspired by shibari works of Japanese artists I learned from over the last fifteen years. There is time to switch roles to deeper understand restriction from both the models perspective as well as the complex skill set of the rigger. In order to experience sexy phantasies and meditative ties.
Haus Sommer is located at Uferhallen Kulturwerkstatt. The atelier with a tea kitchen allows for suspension on bamboo for four couples. The small group size creates an intimate frame to start exploring Shibari for single participants, couples and groups of peers.

– Please bring soft clothes and ropes if you have.
– You can register alone or with partner. If you want to join alone it’s possible to pair up with each other. We will try to connect single participants a few days befor the workshop, but can’t always guarantee. Many thanks for patience and understanding.
– At the beginning we suggest regular participation and practice to create a solid technical base.
– Costs 30 Euro per person.

Mail: workshops(at)dasniyasommer(dot)de / FB: haussommer / Insta: Kinbaku Haus / WA: +49-174-393 70 49

Dates: 8.4.2025
Hours: 19-21.30h
Costs: 30 Euro per person (max. four couples)

Haus Sommer is located at Uferhallen Kulturwerkstatt – Wedding Uferstrasse 8,13357 Berlin. Entrance B6
In case the door is locked please call the number above.
Map here

In the picture: Eliko. Photographed by Werner Amann. Ropes: Dasniya.

Workshop at Zimmt: Festival for Multisensory Perception

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A sweet trip to Leipzig teaching at Zimmt Festival. Always appreciating the advance of trust by the group. Retrospectively think that teaching bondage is often about holding a curious space which legitimates forms of playful and consensual rope work or bdsm. A determined time in which bodily encounters are allowed and warmly accompanied while exploring liminal desires. I am using similar tools as in dance classes, the dynamic just unfolds opposite way: from movement to restriction. Or from shaping the contours to internal and emotional movement. People learn rope techniques and a sort of scripted ritual of a rope bondage session. Learning about desires, borders or thresholds and interact beyond the verbal via rope. A material which allows extreme proximity, but also puts a temporal space in between the practitioners. After 20 years of teaching, exchanging and mutual growing it is still the connecting moment with people, and observing the mind shifting process even in a basic introduction workshop. Thanks ‚Zimmt‘ for this lovely invite!

Festival for Multisensorical Perception

3D Audio Concerts, Exhibitions, Workshop and Lectures

From November 25 to December 4, the sens taktil festival will focus on the overlaps and interactions between the experience of touch and the experience of hearing: in the rooms of ZiMMT and on the grounds of Kontor 80, we invite you to a joint multi-sensory, synaesthetic exploration in which the boundaries between art and the viewer become blurred. In audiovisual concerts with 3D sound or in an ASMR performance, on sound loungers or in walk-in and touchable installations of the tactile exhibition, in workshops, in the festival sauna or on the tactile path, experiences are created that can be heard and felt.

Shibari Workshops November + Dezember


Four more Shibari workshops until the end of year:

12.11.2024 from 19 – 21.30h at Haus Sommer
19.11.2024 from 19 – 21h –  Karada House
2.12. 2024 at 17h – Zimmt Festival, Leipzig
3.12.2024 from 19 – 21.30h – Haus Sommer

Topic: Durational Harnesses

We will look at classical full body ties for simple suspension. The Hishi-structure is a gradually tightening shape which is fun to build and useful to understand specific decorative elements. Adapting to all bodies, it can be untied with a dynamic vibe, a somewhat wild and gutty energy. Before tying it yourself we will repeat body manipulation principles on the floor.
From the models perpective the tying proccess needs some patience, but invites also to deep relaxation and dreamy states of rope drunkenness.
Level: begginner with previous experience – light intermediate.

Hours: 19 – 21.30h
Price: 30€ p.p.

For the dates: Nov 12 + Dec 3 at Haus Sommer, you can register via mail: workshops(at)dasniyasommer(dot)de. More info about content/level and Haus Sommer location here.
For November 19th pls reserve your spot via the Karada House site. Last minute participants can pay by the door.

In the picture: Liz Rosenfeld (aka Riv) in their performance ‘ Thank you for your effort even if these requests cannot be fullfilled’.

PRACTICE

There are always new tools to play with in class. For the last two years, after baby pause, it was about finding comfy performative mind sets while training, and reducing ambition.
Or about a physical focus: getting the pelvic floor strong again for jumps, or shoulder alignment after hours nursing with a crooked back. Dreaming of spiral movement patterns, or meditating on contemporary principles like martial arts and Klein-Technique combined with classic technique. Changing attitudes as moving through formal shapes. I like the technical side, and once letting go of it the inner groove takes over. My body much enjoys visiting these same old training context in new stages of life. Less for mastering, but to adapt and transform the handcraft. And, taking the proprioceptive critic by the hand to stay in a warm conversation with bones even o-40. Big thanks to Jo Siska for endless sweaty classes and for opening a creative ballet space in Berlin, Studio für künstlerischen Tanz.

QUEER ROPE 2024

Happy to announce that I will teach two workshops at virtual Queer Rope Festival by Karada House:
1. Shibari Spa – combining hot stone massage with ropes.
2. Plastic Coocons – developing narrative by involving material into self-tying.
All workshops take place online to meet queer shibari womên and our community from five time zones.
Thanks a lot to Caritia – I much enjoyed teaching together ^^ and to Karada House!
Full program and tickets here.