WORKSHOP: Tire Machèt with Michael Rogers

Gotham Swords is excited to host an intensive six-hour workshop featuring Michael Rogers of The Haitian Machete Fencing Project in Midtown Manhattan!

In Haiti, the traditional art of machete fencing goes by many names, among them Tire Machèt (“Pulling Machetes”). Tire Machèt has roots in the Haitian Revolution, when the revolutionaries were often forced to fight with fewer guns than soldiers. Its combination of ancestral African combat systems proved highly effective both in battle and as a means of individual self-defense.

All profits from this event benefit the people of Haiti through the nonprofit organization Cultural Capital Haiti.

About the Instructor

Michael Rogers(Fencing Instructor & Program Coordinator) Michael is an assistant professor of humanities at Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon. He first traveled to Haiti in 2002 and has spent over four years living and working there. He is the only non-Haitian known to have mastered the art of Haitian machete fencing, and is featured in the documentary short Papa Machete, which he worked on as a consultant from concept through post-production. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Cambridge.