Into the Wild is our most important event of the year. It is a unique opportunity to experience what it is like to live in a sex-positive space for an extended period of time in a natural bush setting. It combines 6 days and 6 nights of workshops, play and artistic installations, parties and performances. You can come either for the whole festival (Tuesday to Monday) (highly recommended) or for the last three days corresponding to the long week-end (Friday to Monday).
In this workshop, we will deepen our understanding of consent by using spatial principles from movement and dance. Consent is most often taught in terms of practicing verbal expressions of ‘yes’ and ‘no’ or otherwise the traffic light system of ‘red’, ‘yellow’ and ‘green’. While verbal expression can be useful and sometimes necessary, it misses an enormous dimension of our intimate communication, which passes non-verbally.
Come Discover the Power of Rope to Create Erotic Intensity!
In this workshop you will learn a few of the technical basics of Japanese bondage and discover rope as a conscious touch and a loving encounter. It also will show you ways to integrate rope with massage, dance and other forms of private play.
Many people think rope is just something you use to tie someone to a bedpost, but it can be much, much more. The process of tying and being tied can provide you with exquisite erotic experiences.
In this workshop, you will discover:
1. How your body responds to rope by self-tying;
2. How to tie someone else with a listening intention, how the rope is both an exploration of touch and a sensuous material;
3. The concepts of tension and connection, which when used correctly make the experience comparable to dance and the playing of a musical instrument;
4. A language to talk about your experiences with your partner, how at once to communicate your pleasure and your borders;
5. Simple techniques from Japanese and European Rope Teachers such as Osada Steve, Hajime Kinoko, Dasniya Sommer, with whom we have studied
6. How to pay attention to the breath while tying and being tied;
7. How to use a combination of blindfolds and canes with rope for those who are interested to play more with intense sensation and power.
It is possible to come single or with a partner. Ropes are available, although it is also advised to bring your own, if you have.
Workshop is led by Dr. Peter B and Natalia B.
Peter B is founder and curator of the Sydney Festival of Really Good Sex. Since 2011 host of Schwelle Sydney. From 2011-2013 artistic director as well as producer of the Festival on the Art of Lust - Xplore Sydney. He has studied Japanese Shibari with Osada Steve, Hajime Kinoko, Dasniya Sommer, Amalion and many others.
Natalia B is a rope enthusiast. She plays with and teaches rope for pleasure, emotional intensity, physical challenge, sex, pain, intimacy and sometimes even something of/resembling ‘art’. Her special interest is in self-tying and self-suspension. She has been working in the so-called helping professions for 15 years.
"Bondage need not be beautiful and perfect for it to feel alive and to give pleasure. For it to go deep, it is not necessary that the rope turn you on. When tying or being tied, you feel your pleasure/displeasure, fear, anger and all the nuances of the whole rich pallet of human feelings...and you take to heart what is there. And naturally this has a healing aspect." Matthias
Location is Hardy Street, North Bondi (exact address given on booking).
Date: Sat-Sun. November 30-December 1 (2pm-6pm each day)
Rope Play Party, November 30 (8pm-1am)
COSTS
Pay-as-You-Like-Procedure. During the weekend you will need to pay for the time that Peter Banki and Natalia B will have spent on preparing and holding the workshop and party. We ask you to consider these costs as well as you own financial situation and decide how much you are willing to pay. If your budget is tight, you are welcome to offer only a small amount. If you are more comfortable, we encourage you to pay more to support the cost of participants that have less money than you have. The amount you are offering does not affect your chances to get a place at the workshop. Sleeping options available at the venue, if you’re coming from out of town. Just ask when you fill out the form.
Endorsements from participants of our rope classes:
"The intimacy and safety of the space created at these events is at once hypnotic, enticing, energizing and relaxing. It has provided me with a safe haven to learn about, grow into and feel comfortable with my own sexuality...I feel I learn something new about who I am every time I come back." - Sion
How do you cultivate love in your life? How do you see the love that is already there? What makes you feel that you are loved?
How can we give freedom to ourselves and others, without losing the support that makes us feel grounded and able to flourish?
Celebrating the Arts of Love is a one-day festival to explore these questions in the diversity and richness of sex-positive relationships. The festival will take at the East Sydney Community Arts Centre, 34 Burton Street, Darlinghurst NSW 2010. There will be a program of workshops, installations, ceremonies and play party.
Sex has never constituted one of Western philosophy’s great questions or themes. And yet, it is undoubtedly one of the strongest forces in many of our lives. Like philosophy, sex has the power radically to put into question the established certainties of existence. It puts us in touch with our vulnerability and our finitude. At the limit, as Georges Bataille said, sex puts us in touch with death. But this is also true of the practice of philosophy, which the ancients believed to be best preparation for death: the process whereby what we think we know—be it about ourselves, others, the world, right and wrong, truth and semblance—is ceaselessly re-examined.
In this workshop we will bring together sexual practices with the reading and discussion of philosophical texts. What might it mean to welcome philosophy into sex-positive spaces? What could one gain from examining the philosophical assumptions silently presumed in the concepts we most often use in the sex-positive world, such as consciousness, consent, authenticity, truth, connection, presence, etc?
People should be prepared both for reading and discussion as well as erotic play. In terms of erotic play, what we do will be dependent on the group, but will involve yoga, relaxation, trauma-release, touch, dance, BDSM, role play and so on.
I believe that there is an intimate connection between eroticism and inconsolable grief. Maybe eroticism cannot exactly heal grief, but it can indeed help us to bear it and even more perhaps to celebrate this short life and help others.
In this workshop we are going to explore the ways in which erotic energies can touch and open the pain inside of us. There will be exercises which explore conscious touch and holding with grief, as well as certain kinds of role play where grief can be accessed.
