As more and more people are doing bondage performances these days, I thought I’d share some insights from my performance career. Admittedly, there is probably a massive amount I don’t know as I have never had any formal training in that area and becoming a performer happened largely by accident. In fact, getting up in front of people has been something I have always avoided. My career as a Thesbian has been limited to the dubious distinction of an undemanding role as a dead body in a school play, so I fear I shall never play The Dane. However, many years on the coal face of office equipment and IT sales cured me of a fear of making presentations and taught me a little about dealing with audiences.
So how did it all start? Well over a decade ago, Lady K, one of the Torture Garden dungeon monitors, was suffiently impressed by my early public fumblings with rope to invite me back to the next event on the guestlist to do some more. Looking back, I can’t help wondering why she did as my rope was truely awful shambari of the worst kind. Anyway, from there I ended up getting my first proper show, as opposed to public random play, at Wicked. This was the birth of the Esinem name. My show was a parody of Eminem’s chainsaw weilding stage persona of the old Slim Shadey days. I recall instructing my diminutive Japanese model Kumi to run on stage screaming and acting scared when I started the chainsaw. She replied that she couldn’t act but then proved the lie by carrying off the role perfectly. So much so that I had quite a job catching her to do the show. When I challenged her after saying “You said you couldn’t act?!”, she replied “But I wasn’t acting! I have never been chased with a chainsaw before!”. Anyway, let’s get back to what I have learned about doing shows.
What makes a show? There are many factors and it is hard to know where to start. Whilst Steve is cynical about his art, there is much to be learned from him. He tells me that the Japanese approach is somewhat different from the west. The job of the nawashi is to present his model in the most beautiful way possible whilst remaining as discrete as the bunraku pupeteers who dispappear against the black background in their ninja suits. The nawashi should also be part of the background leaving the focus on the model. This is why they often favour dark outfits, leaving the peaococking to the women. Steve will aim for economical in movement, not expansive or flashy, and try to minimise his not inconsiderable size compared to his tiny models. Try to stay behind your model and not block the audiences view. Learn to tie from behind before you decide to go on stage since a view of your butt is probably not as appealing as seeing the model. Don’t spend a long time doing rope they can’t see. If you need to do this, consider turning the model if this is more attractive than the view presented. Remember, the star is the model, not the rigger. A good model can make an average rigger look good but a good rigger with a bad model has his work cut out. The good ones know how to place themselves in rope to look elegant, the bad ones like an awkward sack of potatoes.
Watching the shows of the professionals, you will notice their consumate flow and decisiveness. Nobody wants to watch a fumbler. It’s like seeing a pianist hunt for the keys or hearing an actor fluffing his lines. Rope should be like a dance, you should be in step with your partner and with your music. I prefer to keep my rope in reach as I don’t like to break the conenction by releasing my grip on it, although I notice that not many riggers have this approach. I’m not saying do it but it works for me. If rope is to be a tool of communication and an extension of your will and hands, it must express you and your energy. This should be genuinely part of you to have power and meaning for your audience. They are uncannily good at spotting fakes. If you impersonate me, Odasa Steve or Kinoko, they will spot it. inveitably, there will always be a trace of your teachers but don’t be a clone. Be yourself.
Muscle memory is a pre-requiste for flow. If you have to think about the steps, you won’t be fluid. Once you can tie automatically, you can work on the ergonomics. You need to hone every action so you can tie accurately without hesitation. Don’t under estimate the importance of this. You will be under stress, things will go wrong. You need to react immediately and not loose your cool. Every split second of delay seems like minutes, you think everyone has noticed when something doesn’t go as planned, the slightest fumble seems to stick out like a sore thumb. The secret is dealing with it like nothing has happened. Do it confidently and 99.99% will never notice and those that do will have the knowledge to realise that shit happens. Do it right and they will tip their hats saying “He dealt with that like a pro”. I always say that I love watching for those unplanned moments and seeing how well they overcome the problem. It sorts the men out from the boys. Once you have achieved that degree of proficiency, you can then work on putting the emotion and passion into the way you apply the rope and handle your model.
Unless, I have a suffiently quiet venue and extremely attentive audience, I would always choose a soundtrack. This is where the old sales adage K.I.S.S. comes in. That stands for Keep It Simple, Stupid. In other words, make it easy for the DJ or sound guy. Make a mix of all your show tracks, properly faded into each other, on a single CD or memory stick (ask which they need and don’t make assumptions about what they need or that they have the right cable to get it off your phone). It is a rare thing that I find somebody even capable of starting a CD at the right time and fading it at the end, never mind getting a play list in the right order or fading the tracks in and out. Keep it as simple as possible. Remember, if something can go wrong, Sod’s Law dictates it will. It’s not a bad idea to bring backup copies of your music.
Choice of music is very important. Is it appropriate and in theme for your show? Will the punters like it? It’s no good going all ambient in front of a bunch of metal heads. I like film scores or any music with that tingle down the spine effect. There is a lot of music with very wide appeal. Film scores work well as they are skillfully composed to convey mood and emotion. I particlualry love Michael Nyman’s scores and the soundtrack from V for Vendetta as they exemplify this for me. Golden oldies like Sweet Dreams or Tainted Love are fairly cross-generational and something of a favourite, especailly Marilyn Manson’s ultra-sleazy covers.
One should consider the tempo of the music against that of your show. For example, a slow quieter build up might be appropriate during a more intimate floorwork session where the t-k is tied and then builing to a faster more dramatic pace as one goes into suspension, then back to something slower for the untie. Often it helps to chose something with a beat or flow that can be reflected in your movements. A more aggressive and faster show might benefit from some hard rock or a more dreamlike slow show from ambient. Music adds a lot if chosen well as it is designed to provoke emotion by reflecting this in the way you apply the rope one can create and efective feedback loop, one feeding the other. If you work with music you know, you can time your movements or transitions to the music as you know when they are coming. At least try to work with the music even if you don’t know it, as might be the case if you have to work with what ever the DJ wants to spin. If he puts on Prodigy, you probably need to be tying like a dervish.
Visual appeal goes a long way. As I have mentioned, you need eye candy and spectacle. People want some element of fantasy to take them away from the humdrum. This might just be the sheer beauty of your model in rope but some artiface helps. Stage make-up and costume is often larger than life. Japanese shows are a visual feast as they frequently feature kimonos. Our own Nawashi Murakawa’s work epitomisse this with exotically rich tableaux of Japanese artifacts, geisha make-up, kimono-clad models, bamboos and his wonderfully organic style of rope. On the other hand, it might be entirely non-traditional like Kinoko’s UV and laser cyber shows. Of course, as Steve knows, there is nothing like bare flesh to get the right audience’s attention. Ultimately, it is a case of knowing what is apporpriate for the audience. If you are not performing for rope geeks, you need to give it to them fast and grab their short little attention spans. Your average clubber is not going to want to watch you take 20 minutes to tie a t-k. They have a head full of all sorts and are wondering if they can pull that hottie over there, so you need to distract them for a while. With an audience like Wasteland or Torture Garden, I’d keep it to 15-20 minutes unless you really have something to keep them there. Always leave them wanting more, not wishing you had a home to go to.
Unless your ‘circus bondage’, i.e. very flashy fast multi-transition, is world class, you are going to need a ‘point’. Riccardo Wildties seems to be carving himself a niche for this kind of show in a harder genre. You could go for a theme, a special dynamic or it could be something spectacular. Ideally, all of them. I’ll give some more examples.
One much favoured genre is the traditional Japanese show. In this instance, typically, the model will be in kimono or similar with fundoshi (loin cloth), sometimes a sailor fuku schoolgirl outfit, and rigger in dark Japanese clothing. The music could be Japanese, although this can be a bit discordant to the western ear, or something less traditional. Visual interest is frequently added by the use of candle light and strongly coloured candle wax. These shows will display the model in physically beautiful poses but also often in sexually available or shamefully exposed positions. There is also the concept of ‘beautiful suffering’ to be expressed, which I believe owes somethng to the parallels between a face in the throws of orgasm and undergoing pain.
Some shows rely heavily on the dynamic between model and rigger. Whilst this is a neccessary element in any show, some performers use this as their main point. Jack the Whipper and Zahara are perfect examples. Their performmances eschew costumes and special effects, yet captivate their audiences with the energy and obvious pure mutual enjoyment. As they say in sales, there is only one thing more infectious than enthusiasm and that’s lack of it. These two have it in abundance! Create electricity and you will set your audience alight. I have seen this energy silence a room previously alive with hubbub, cause whole audiences to inhale simultaneously or moved to tears.
There are many other themes with which to play. I have been asked to do shows for Halloween or similar events, so for that I have created a Nosferatu-like character, which rather worryingly takes surprisingly little make-up. A recent scenario involved taking my victim into an inversion after something of a struggle and ending the show by sinking my fangs into her neck with copious amounts of blood flowing from the wound. She then gets thrown to my vampire harem. So here, we have a them with a reasonably strong and decisive ending.
It’s good to have a high point or shock value. I did a last minute show at LFAJRB. The high points were, firstly, an old trick I had developed which made it look like I had removed half the skin from Nina’a arse with an electric sander. Secondly, I hung her in a bag held by a ‘shoelace’ (750kg rate ddyneema), then cut the main suspension likes with an electric saw. Audience reaction? This guy is crazy! Wow! The reality was that neither was a fraction as dangerous as it appeared. Physics meant the sander caused no injury and that the final suspension on the ‘shoelace’ was probalbly safer than the original rig! Don’t take unacceptable risk to impress as they can go wrong, very wrong, as this Ukranian X Factor wannabe found out…fatally.
There are many approaches to doing shows. Some artists, and many experienced performers are in this category, have a couple of standard shows that are choreographed to almost the last detail. If you are highly disciplined or starting out this is a winning formula. You can refine every detail and iron out surprises. Some people thrive on this degree of organisation and I’m not denying that very slick shows can be done like this. Personally, I’m somewhat chaotic and find choreographed shows really stressful. I’m told some of my best shows have been off the cuff but I think that depends on having the right sort of audience to pull that off. If you sit down and do an intense one rope floorwork session for geeks, they get it but it would be suicide at a busy Torture Garden. I remember people walking by when Kinoko was doing floorwork in the cage at TG, yet he stopped the same people in their tracks with his cyber show. Even if I’m planning a major stage show, I don’t plan much beyond the costumes, music and roughly what sort of suspension I’m going to do. Even the latter doens’t alway follow the planned course since more than once I have looked down to realise that I have begun to do something entirely different or I haven’t even been aware of an entire track, which isn’t ideal if you are working off cues from the soundtrack. Consequently, I’ll make sure I have my key points and transitions then fill in between ad hoc; keeping it failry loose, just trying to remember reference tracks for significant things like untying. I try to make sure i have an extra 5 mimutes or so on the end as time can fly and there’s nothing worse than spending the last few minutes in unintended silence.
Try to create a clear ending either by action, music or lighting. Again, be aware that what ever you are told, it is quite possible that the right person won’t figure out when your show has ended or remember dim the lights. Don’t feel you need to untie on stage, sometimes it works but on other occasions it is best to leave that till after. Don’t test your audience’s patience. They rarely think you are as great as you think you are, so best get off stage or they might figure this out. I strongly suggest your are sitting back stage with a JD and coke well before then.
There is much to be said for a well-rounded show that encompasses skill, individuality, visual appeal and emotion. Emotion can be between the performers but it can also involve the audience, directly or indirectly. Electricity can indirectly entrance the audience in any performance. Some rely on humour or parody. Nawakiri Shin and Will Hunt often inject some humour rather charmingly into their shows without turning them into farces. If done right, and not overdone, it can engage audiences instantly. The downside is that not everyone can pull it off and one way to die is to miscalculate.
Try to be original in some respect. There are many shows that use the same components so if you use them, do something different. There are only so many times doing a yoko-tusri in a standard way with a model in a kimono and candles is interesting to the more seasoned audience. If you are not Japanese, why not introduce your own culture or something with whcih you more realily identify? I recently took the architypal British builder and his assistant as the characters in a rather tongue in cheek show, kicking off with Bob the Builder as my first track, but I have used others, e.g. bowler hatted businessman, para-military, doctor, schoolmaster.
Press some buttons, be individual and inject some passion but don’t try to be too clever too quickly or take stupid risks. Too many riggers these day are trying to make an impact by exceeding their skill set. It’s only when things don’t go as planned this comes unstuck and one finds that confidence has exceeded ability in a stressful situation and your downfall will be all too public. Do what you can do to the best of your ability rather than strive to rise to the level of your own incompetence 😉