Yukimura Haruki, Chizuru, and the Satsueikai
These photographs were taken in Roppongi in October 2013 during a satsueikai with Yukimura Haruki and Chizuru.
Yukimura Haruki was one of the most distinctive figures in modern Japanese kinbaku. He began working in the Japanese adult-video industry in the 1980s, first as a photographer and later as a director and producer. By the 1990s he was developing the approach that would become known as Aibunawa or Aibu no Nawa, a style centered less on technical complexity or dramatic suspension and more on intimacy, communication, and the emotional exchange created through rope.
Yukimura’s rope could be remarkably economical. Rather than treating a tie as a fixed technical construction, he often used relatively little rope and focused on timing, touch, movement, and the responses of the person being tied. His work eventually developed into the school now known as Yukimura-ryu, which continues to describe kinbaku as a form of dialogue and expression between people rather than simply a collection of techniques.
A satsueikai (撮影会) is, literally, a photography gathering or photo session. The word combines satsuei (撮影), photography or filming, with kai (会), a gathering or meeting. In Japan the term is used for organized photographic sessions in which one or more models are photographed by participating photographers.
In the kinbaku world, a satsueikai can also provide an unusual way of observing a bakushi at work. It is not quite the same thing as a stage performance or a formal class. The tying unfolds for the camera, often at close range, while photographers record the changing relationship between the person tying and the person being tied. The resulting photographs document not only finished ties, but gestures, expressions, transitions, and moments that might disappear almost immediately.
These images therefore offer a glimpse of Yukimura’s work in a particularly appropriate setting. Rather than presenting kinbaku as a sequence of spectacular poses, they record the quieter interaction between Yukimura and Chizuru as the session develops.
Photography by Zetsu. Roppongi, Tokyo, October 2013.
