Teaching at Lisbon Fetish Weekend has been one of the best experiences we have ever done! We had a great success and met some of the best and most friendly people!
We arrived in Lisbon on Friday night quite late and MasterM__ picked up us at the airport. He drove us to the venue were the festival was already started and we had a chance to meet the organizers MikeG, isabel and MistressPatrizia that also run the website http://www.consensual.org.pt, an educational project for the Portuguese BDSM community.
The venue was a huge facility, very high ceilings, and fantastic wooden floor. A beautiful exposition of illustrations from some of the most famous BDSM artists was in display and 5 award winning short bdsm themed movies were projected. We had a little time to socialize and then we were drove the our hotel, a beautiful luxury one, but before we had a nice car tour of the town's city center.
Unluckily by that time Wildties started having the symptoms of a a very bad throat ache and uprising fever.
The day started with a great big breakfast and the MasterM__ came to pick us up. We went to the venue for a private tuition with MikeG and MasterM__. Subject of class were hishi gote shibari, face up suspension and futomomo suspension. Despite we have abandoned this style for our shows and are dedicating ourselves to Naka Ryu presently, it is still fun to teach these things. The fast progress made by the students and the two spacey models enjoying the inverted suspension gave us a great satisfaction.
After class we had time to rest and have some great Portuguese food while the organizers starting setting everything for our show. I was quite surprised to see them pack the room were the performance was to be held with chairs. It seemed unlikely that a kinbaku show would attract more than a handful of people in such a community, so new to BDSM and were rope is practiced just by very few people. But believe it or not the job these guys have done has been so amazing that 100 people filled every possible space in the room! 100 people willing to pay for our show, most of them totally new to rope. Wow, MikeG and the others did such an incredible job!
Wildties fever was rising, but the show had to go on. Good new was that finally we were given a full hour for our show. We are not theater actors, nor we are interested any more in circus bondage. We need our session to be built slowly. Finally we had all the time we needed! Bad news was that we had planned to use a takatekote instead of a gote (arms crossed high in back vs arms parallel to the ground) in show for the first time. But Redsabbath had never tried that arm position for such a long time. Wildties was quite worried but the little redhead is as tough as a nail and wanted to go for it. Also it was going to be our first show entirely in Naka Ryu, 7mt ropes, no use of the bite, etc., so this was adding an extra challenge.
We entered on stage hand in hands, Redsabbath knelt on the floor and was tied in a strict tk. Wildties tied the rigging line and left there there for a bit. That arm position is very powerful on her head, makes her space, she loves to feel it and needs also time for her body to adapt. When raised to standing position and main suspension line was adjusted accordingly, Wildties tied the 3rd rope to the tk. Redsabbath was looking so fucking beautiful in that traditional tk.
After that point memory fades… Fever, emotions, the palpable tension in the audience. We just remember that she went through three of our favorite positions, the split, the one with the leg up high and an inversion with a body lacing. She had pleasure and she had pain. Gags, bastinado, whipping, crotch rope. We were honestly so lost in our session that we could not even describe it, so many details are too confused. When we finished Wildties was worried… He had lost sense of time and thought he had performed only 20 minutes. It was a shock when organizers said that he had gone through all his appointed hour.
Feedback we received after the show (and are still receiving) is stunning. What touches us the most is the number of people that said that they had seen many bondage show before us and always found them boring, aerial performance that was in no way sexy. While our show was loved and made hot even those BDSMers that were not into rope. Also there was a guy that saw a show a year ago at FIP party, when Wildties had just moved to Paris. Though not a rope guy he saw the difference. His description of what changed in our style since then nailed exactly what we are trying to convey to the public. Transitions and fly around were fun, but that's not why we started rope. And now we are showing exactly what we love of rope: beautiful suffering, lovely squirming, pain, shame, intimacy. Most people did not believe we did not rehearse the show (we did not even know we had an hour of time until few minutes before going on stage), and this is a good proof of how everything was fluid and natural.
After show some wine was served and believe it or not the organizers transformed the room in a great play space in just half an hour! The spent month building equipment, so good such I've seen in very few parties in Europe. All kind of benches, bondage devices, cages etc. A great party started and believe me it was one of the best I've seen. Unluckily Wildties fever by that time was really high and we could not stay much. Before going though Redsabbath wanted to try a sensory deprivation box. Just cause the beating she had in show was not enough she got some more in the box. Wildties would have loved to tie the beautiful Portuguese girls but he could barely stand so we left for the hotel to have some rest.
The following morning we had a little tour downtown and ate some great fish. Lisbon is beautiful and we hope to have a chance to visit it properly.
Despite the party ended at 5am the night before we had a good number of people attending the workshop. We spent 5 hours doing good ropes and having fun. We talked a lot about safety, connection, bondage for sex etc. We had a lot of positive feedback and many people wrote to us willing to visit Italy for private class in the future.
Evening ended with a great typical Portuguese dinner in a wonderful restaurant with the organizers. Useless to say it was delicious.
These people are building a new community, facing all the difficulties you can imagine, and they are doing an awesome job. All their didactic and artistic initiatives are contributing to raise the level of the scene in Portugal in a huge way. I have no doubts that Lisbon Fetish Weekend will soon become one of the main fetish events in Europe.
Enjoy the gallery of our show in the beautiful images by Fabrice Ziegler.
