Do you trust men? In this hands-on workshop, you’ll be tied up with ropes, and held by another man without force or violence. You will receive the gift of another man’s full attention and care, and you’ll practice doing the same for another man. Andy will share techniques on how to gently guide the body and mind to relax, trust, let go of control, and maybe even fully surrender.
Welcome to a game of sacrifice,
A game of love.
What will you do for love?
This is a workshop in two parts:
First, a speed-date for love.
Second, a game of love,
with one, many, or nobody.
This is a workshop about drooling that provides a frame for the participants to explore different situations for drooling. From drooling yourself and getting drooled on, to choreographing the drooling, and observing as a witness. Maybe you will find it erotic, or shameful. Perhaps empowering, or disgusting. Either way there is only one way to find out. Let it pour.
I’ve for a long time been trying to define what happened to me during the years of Schwelle 7. And now ten years later I carry the fruits of Schwelle 7 forward in my own work with the in-between space. Now I realize that I’m personally more interested in a space to be brave, than a space to be safe.
The human bondage experience tells a story between two people. In the simplest form of rope bondage, between the person tying and the person being tied. The story is created by individual fantasies coming together. Fantasies are like seeds in our unconscious waiting to be discovered and cultivated. By telling the story with our action, we learn about ourselves.
After teaching rope for almost ten years in different subcultures. The tantric community in Scandinavia has a special place in my heart. It taught me so much. To celebrate that I want to make a longer workshop tailored for the qualities and quirks that make it special to me. That is consciously being with the present experience – how does it feel right now? Breath in, breath out. Welcoming all emotions and giving them space. No fuckin’ charity still apply. This is for you and your experience.
…or I ghost rigged it. Ghost rigging is the deal that I make a beautiful tie for some kind of video recording or photoshoot, but we make it look like someone else did it. In this example a young girl suspending an older man.
Being busy the past years with my theatre studies, I’ve been trying to wrap my head around bondage and performance. One possible element is a story and character development, that the acts to tying ropes move the story somewhere. This is possible in a dedicated rope performance, but often feels forced and a bit out of place. However, being a part of the story that unravels in a feature film gives other possibilities.
In the clip below has Stefan has walked away from his ten year wedding anniversary, after an awkward dinner conversation about old lovers, commitment, abortion, loyalty and freedom. He needs a break from this day and the complexity of life. Faith leads him to Saga. As many times before. She is a university student of his. They share a secret.
I’m coming home to Stockholm this autumn and I’m super-hyped to start up the weekly rope teaching again. I can’t believe that two years of theatre and directing studies are over. Looking back on what I’ve learnt and how I’ve been tying the past years I decided to run two bi-weekly rope groups this autumn on very different subjects.
Women often ask men to advise men on how to interact with women, but who am I to preach? I can share a story that I’ve seen re-enacted hundreds of times over the years. The story about a lone cowboy. It is heteronormative and exaggerated. Still, it carries an important message to some men out there.
What is a Play Party? What is it? WHAT IS IT? This question is continuously asked. Here video interview in Danish with my beautiful and brave friend Lea Love. She is doing the organization and amazing food for the Play Parties in southern Sweden.
Her answer to the question “What is a Play Party” was the following (translated to English).
It’s a space.
That we create together.
That is built on trust.
Where you are free.
To explore your own sexuality.
Alone, together with others, or in whatever constellation that feels right.
Exploring sexuality can be an inner journey without any physical contact.
It’s a space where we are free to be as we are.
An experiment.
Sitting there in the sub-saharan night with crickets singing and stars filling the sky a thought was born – why do I organize and celebrate the breaking of structure and loose of control.
Hi Andy! Tantric Rope bondage! How is it tantric? What kind of tantra are you connecting it to? White, red, black, Hindu, Buddhistic, or TNT?
I have received this question many times, so I wanted to answer properly here. First off, I’m NOT a tantric historian. I started to learn rope bondage in the BDSM community. It was about 10 years ago that I got invited to share my knowledge in various different tantric gatherings. It started with Sexsibility in Sweden that is much inspired by Barbara Carellas Urban Tantra. Funnily enough, I’ve heard it said that Barbara regrets calling it “Tantra” in the first place because of this question in particular. Because in essence what we practice is a handful of concrete technique and values, that makes sense alone, without connecting them to a spiritual and mystical legacy. It doesn’t matter if you associate the techniques with a Hindu or Buddhist deity, or none at all because they work anyway (for most people). But the question is still important, so I’ll explain myself deeper.
One of the reasons why I started the man and the machine project was to explore how to create an space that was holding it self. In a one-on-one session I’m holding space for the other person, by actually continuously adapting to the client. In a workshop I shape the space by selecting exercises and guiding along the way. But I’ve also been curious about how much the space can do by itself.
This is an description of the technology behind the interactive soundscapes that I’ve mainly been building as a part of the man and the machine project. It is aimed for non-nerds to explain what I do to artist of other disciplines.
The technology is modular. This means that is works like lego bricks, so it can be picked apart and reassembled in many different ways. That allows the evolution of project, so similar to a theatre production, I do rehearsals to learn more about how I want the lego bricks to be put together. The final result is some kind of machine that interacts with the human outside.
“Basically most of us will get turned on at night by the very same things that we will demonstrate against during the day.”
–Esther Perel, the secret to desire in a long-term relationship
Bondage, discipline, submission, sadism, and masochism are the pillars of BDSM. They are conscious taboos in our everyday life, but they are equally strong in our subconscious, governing both our sexuality and creativity. We are often tempted to explore them unconsciously in destructive relationships, lasting a night to a life-time. Or trivialising them to an embarrassing 50 Shades of Gray clique (or Harlequin novel if you were born before 1980). Instead, in this retreat, we will explore BDSM through rituals, that act as frames that we can consciously relate to and reflect upon. This enables, on one hand, a safer space and clearer communication, and on the other hand a deeper experience, as we follow a known path that works together.
This photo shot together with Joakim Erixson Flodman from 2018 was a continuations of RAW:MOTIONS. We wanted to explore what kind of motion that is born out of restriction. It was shot at the top on Hammarby Backen i Stockholm on a sunny summer afternoon.
