Shibari the Art of Stillness

I am a dancer. So, I use every inch of my body for beauty and art. I have disciplined every one of my muscles, so that they’ll do whatever my imagination demands of them. I move. That is, I make motion visible, so that others can see how beautiful it is. Shapes and figures grow out of me. They are strong, harmonious, wonderful. I am a dancer and I speak through motion. Little did I know I would find in Shibari the art of stillness.

Stillness used to be my enemy. Not moving is the ultimate defeat for a dancer, or so they taught me. I learned to move endlessly and to avoid stillness at all costs. And yet, I always felt that my art was lacking something, and I had the intuition that it had something to do with motionlessness. 

I discovered Shibari and I found beauty in it. Suspension, being still in the air, opened up a whole new perspective for my art. It is not uncomfortable, as it may seem at first. Besides, it is the art of defeating gravity and expressing yourself through immobility. It is beautiful. Shibari, the art of stillness, is a whole new realm for me.

I am a dancer, so I have tried difficult and complex suspension scenes. Moreover, I trained myself for it just as hard as I trained to be a dancer and work with motion. I was happy to confirm that I still had the fire. I proved that I could learn something new and show discipline and skill.

I’m always afraid before it begins. The same happens with dancing. I doubt if what I am about to do will be accepted as art, and if I’ll still have the skill to achieve it. But then, when I am suspended above the ground, turning my body into a beautiful, perfect shape that speaks the unspeakable, I feel a strong, overwhelming sense of reassurance. I feel drunk with my own success.

This is my Shibari story.