BALKAN
BOUND

Ariana Ruža is an artist from New York who began studying shibari in 2018. Her work explores masculinity, power, and the visual language of dominance. She uses rope to create provocative encounters with men, motorcycles, chainsaws, and symbols of masculine identity.

Ruža's work challenges traditional ideas of power by placing masculine imagery into unexpected contexts while drawing aesthetics from alternative and underground culture.

Rebis is a shibari artist based in Belgrade and a student of Vlada Vedmovskaya. His work draws motifs from the alternative scene and explores the darker sides of human expression in his practice.

They tie together as two Dominants, creating high-energy sadomasochistic scenes that express a combative side of eroticism.

Anna Lysee is an educator, organiser, and practitioner working at the intersection of embodiment, sexuality, and community-based learning. She has been part of the organisation of xplore Berlin since 2022 and is also the lead organiser of EURIX (European Rigger and Model Exchange).

With a background in education and ongoing studies in psychology, Anna brings a strong focus on relational processes, group dynamics, and the integration of body and mind into her work. She is trained in Integrative Trauma Therapy as well as Couples and Sex Therapy.

In the field of Shibari, she has been active since 2014 as both a model and rigger, and has been teaching, co-teaching, and performing internationally for many years. Her approach combines technical precision with an interest in psychological, interpersonal, and creative aspects of rope and kink.

Saara Rei is a multidisciplinary performance artist, Kinbaku practitioner, and workshop facilitator with a background in music, dance, education, and public speaking. Performing since childhood as a dancer and classical musician, she treats the stage as a space for honest collaboration between performers and audience, blending the surreal, the provocative, and the emotionally raw.

She has been immersed in Japanese-inspired rope bondage since 2014, both as a rigger and as a highly experienced rope bottom who has collaborated with many of the most respected riggers in the international Kinbaku community. She is a co-founder of Embodied in Rope, an educational project and curriculum designed for rope bottoms, and co-hosts the podcast Model Behaviour with Anna Noctuelle and Natasha Nawataneko.

Her work is grounded in power dynamics, sadomasochism, and emotional exploration, inviting participants to meet pain, fear, and vulnerability as pathways to presence and transformation. Holding a Ph.D. in mathematics, she teaches with rigor, playfulness, and humor. She considers herself a student of Felix Ruckert and the Schwelle7 community.

Arseniy Nazaruk is a shibari master from Saint Petersburg with 8 years of continuous rope experience. He runs sessions, training, and workshops, and creates shows and art projects that showcase the aesthetics of shibari.

In his practice, Arseniy balances the tactile, aesthetic, emotional, and sensual sides of shibari. Rope isn't an end in itself for him — it's a tool for visual expression, practical application, and self-expression. His approach avoids rigid dogma: he treats shibari as a living dialogue, where technique supports improvisation and mutual exploration. In class, he helps you settle safely into practice — technique as a foundation for improvisation and shared discovery, with the partners' attention and comfort always coming first.

At Balkan Bound he brings Simple Ties to a Confident Semi-Suspension — a technique anyone can learn. Starting from simple, reliable wrist, leg, and thigh ties with no complex prep, the workshop builds step by step into a full semi-suspension: learning to distribute weight and guide a partner's body so both of you stay comfortable and safe, closing with a short dynamic sequence with smooth transitions between elements. All practice, nothing you can't repeat on your own right away — calm and confident, no excess theory.

Nikolai Freerider is a participant of major Russian and international festivals and the founder of the Russian shibari community "Shibaru". He has worked as a rope consultant on feature films, TV series, and music videos. He has been practicing shibari professionally since 2019.

His performances often blend engineering and theatre, and in his actions he leans toward a traditional Japanese approach.

He wouldn't call himself a follower of any particular school — his focus is squarely on the functionality of the rope. His guiding principle: "If you can't explain to yourself the purpose of a given element of a tie, don't do it."

august:

Rope bottoming since 2023, august initially endorsed rope within the scope of domination/submission dynamics as a ritual of surrendering the self for the other and as means of transgression through extreme physical experience. All this while modelling has remained for her a part of the general service to the master.

Over time, she has embraced multiple faces of rope and performs as a rope master since 2025. She regards traditional shibari as an distinct genre and admires its ceremonial nature which makes room for epiphany through repetition, precision, and accured context. As a performer, she adopts a modernist approach to rope, using it as one of the means of transverbal expression accomodating eros, art, and cognition, which to her are indivisible.

Wlada Wedmowskaya is a kinbakushi who in many ways has formed the Russian bondage community. For 10 years she organized the international shibari festivals Moscow Knot (later Moscow Bound) and took part in thematic shows all over the world. Her sessions are spectacular and endlessly creative, cruel and sensitive — every interaction with a model has its own unique plot.

Since February 2024 she has been living in Serbia. There she launched regular shibari courses, taught the majority of people who form the current Belgrade shibari community, founded the Balkan Bound festival and opened the studio KnotCoven.

At the Balkan Bound festival kinbakushi Wlada Wedmowskaya will show you the first steps to start a long journey into the art of shibari — the theory and practice of the very basics of safe and sensuous tying. After the lecture you'll be able to take the ropes yourself and try to talk to your partner through them: as with speech, these will be the first simple words, but this is how your story begins.

Feuertänzer is a Shibari Artist who loves both sides of rope — as a model and as a rigger. Trained in different tying styles, yet he prefers to have a good time together rather than striving for perfection. As a rigger, he loves to play with a model's mind, and his own unique style of seducing someone with his ropes reflects his background as a gigolo and masseur.

As a rope model, he is highly expressive, and people tell they can read him like an open book as soon as he is tied up. Very much into body movements, giggles and cuddles, and freaky or torturous play. Even though he wouldn't call himself a masochist, he clearly can't hide how much he is falling for charming sadists.