I’m Gestalta, a shibari artist, performer & teacher based in Berlin.

Rope came to me through a curiosity about borders: of the body, of the psyche, of intimacy, of practices that have always been held outside sanctioned categories. Almost twenty years on, I'm still there. I've spent that time working from both sides of the ropes - tying and being tied - travelling across Europe, Japan, and Australia to perform and teach. I've written a book on suspension, and I now run Daruma, my own dedicated shibari studio in Berlin.

For me, rope has always been a practice that refuses tidy categories - art, sexuality, philosophy, human connection - and does its best work at the edges where they bleed together. My training as an artist and ongoing research of Butoh shape my work as much as my roots in the BDSM scene do. The three aren't really separable in how I work.

Whether you want to learn from me, be tied by me, or bring me somewhere to teach or perform, everything I offer is shaped by close attention to the specific body in front of me - how it moves, what it needs, what it's already saying.

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