International
Art of Combat
Cutting Edge Professionals for Action & Combat Performance
John "Doc" Lennox
Dr. John Lennox is an internationally recognized fight director, regularly teaching workshops on stage and historical combat styles for professional stage combat organizations, fencing academies, colleges and universities throughout the world. He has taught all over the U.S., as well as Canada, England, Scotland, Ireland Germany, Finland and Belgium.
He has been working as a fight director for over twenty years throughout the United States and has assisted at the National Opera in Brussels, Belgium. He has been teaching the craft at colleges and universities for over thirteen years. The stage combat company he founded, Art of Combat, has chapters in New York, New York; Los Angeles, California; Edinburgh, Scotland and Sydney, Australia. He is also an Honorary Fight Director for The Australian Stage Combat Association.
He is an expert level knife instructor with the School of Two Swords, and an instructor with the Historical Martial Study Society. John has been an instructor at the college and university level since 1994. He has taught Acting, Shakespeare, Stage Make-Up, Stage Combat I & II, Technical Theatre, Theatre History, Intro to Theatre, Intro to Acting and directed several productions at various institutions. He is also the founder of the Michigan Shakespeare Festival.
Some of his directing credits include: I Hate Hamlet, A Comedy of Errors, Othello, The Three Musketeers, Rashomon, The Birds, The Tempest, A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream, Threepenney Opera, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare [Abridged] and The Many Deaths of Shakespeare.
He is the author of A History of Stage Swordplay: Shakespeare to the Birth of Film, and he is also working on a book on fight direction entitled Truth in Action: Mastering Combat and Fight Direction for Stage and Screen.
John holds a B.S. in Theatre with an acting focus from Western Michigan University, an M.A. in Theatre with a theatre history focus from Michigan State University, and a Ph.D in Theatre with a directing/scholar emphasis with cognate studies in historical fencing from Wayne State University.
Jared Kirby
Jared Kirby has been involved in Western Martial Arts and Combat for Stage & Screen for over 20 years. He teaches in New York City (and the metro area) and has choreographed fights Off-Broadway, Nationally, in London and Sydney.
As a Fight Director, Jared has worked with stars such as Peter Sarsgaard, Steve Guttenberg and has trained actors/stunt performers who are working on hit shows like Orange is the New Black, The Walking Dead, Gotham, Person of Interest, The Vampire Diaries, The Blacklist and in Films such as The Nice Guys, Captain America: Civil War, The Hunger Games, Furious 7, Insurgent. Jared is a member of Actor’s Equity and SAG/AFTRA.
He is the president of Combat Con in Las Vegas, past president of Art of Combat, and served for six years on the board of the International Order of the Sword & Pen.
Jared currently teaches fencing at SUNY Purchase, Sarah Lawrence College and is a Master of Arms (Maestro d’Armi) through the Martinez Academy of Arms. Jared has an ongoing Combat for Stage & Screen class in New York City and teaches at the prestigious Tom Todoroff Conservatory as well as the NY Conservatory for Dramatic Arts.
He teaches a variety of workshops across the US and around the world including Canada, England, Scotland, Finland, Italy and Australia. He has taught at the Paddy Crean International Art of the Sword Workshop, the International Swordfighting and Martial Arts Convention (ISMAC), Rapier Camp and the Western Washington WMA Workshop just to name a few.
Jared is the editor and one of the translators of “Italian Rapier Combat”, the first complete, professional translation of Capo Ferro. He is also the editor and wrote the introduction for “The School of Fencing” by Domenico Angelo and annotated by Maestro Jeannette Acosta-Martínez. Most recently “The Gentleman’s Guide to Duelling” was released in February 2014 and a reprint of Donald McBane’s The Expert Swordsman’s Companion was released in January 2017. For more information, see Amazon.com.
Kyle "Capt" Rowling
Kyle Rowling is a professional Actor, Director, Weapons Master and Fight Director. He has twenty-five years experience in various Martial Arts including Chinese and Japanese styles and has been working as a Fight Director for over a decade. In that time he has trained, choreographed and performed Stage Combat for STC, Opera Australia, Ensemble Theatre, Belvoir St, Marion St, Bell Shakespeare, the David Atkins Group, Sydney Shakespeare Globe and many more.
He also teaches and choreographs regularly at most of Sydney’s top acting institution including NIDA, VCA, the Actors College of Theatre and Television, the Actors Centre Australia and The Australian Theatre for Young People.
Kyle’s Stage Combat and performance skills have also secured him work in many theatre and film productions including “Star Wars EP II and III” as Christopher Lee’s fight double, Eric Bana’s personal weapons trainer for “Troy”, fight director and performer for the 2000 production of “Pan” at Sydney’s Capitol Theatre and the 2001 New York tour of STC's “The White Devil.”
Brian "Brock" Brockenshire
Brock is an Equity Actor, Director and Fight Director with a BFA in acting and a BA in Psychology. He has performed for many theatre companies including the Stratford and Shaw Festivals, and the Access Theatre, N.Y. He is passionate about the analysis and performance of classical texts, and some of his favourite roles have been Cyrano de Bergerac, Petruchio, Sweeney Todd, Mercutio and the Marquis de Sade.
Brock has studied stage combat with numerous Canadian and International Instructors including Maestro Paddy Crean, and is trained in a wide variety of weapons and techniques. He has been teaching and choreographing theatrical violence since 1992, and has been the Fight Director for numerous productions including Romeo and Juliet, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Good Night Desdemona, Beauty and the Beast, The Three Musketeers, Cyrano de Bergerac and Peter Pan.
Brock is a Certified Fight Instructor for FDC (Fight Directors Canada), an Internationally Certified Fight Director with AoC (Art of Combat), and a member of Theatre Ontario and the The Talent Bank (FI & FD), CODE (Council of Ontario Drama & Dance Educators), IOSP (International Order of the Sword & Pen) and IFDG (the Independent Fight Directors Guild).
Bryce Bermingham
Bryce was a ranked tournament free style martial artist growing up and combined that passion with dramatic art to stimulate a long career in film and theatre.
While acquiring a BFA and MFA in musical theatre Bryce found time to attend stage combat workshops and even teach and train in the UK, spending 6 months based out of the Welsh College of Music and Drama. Bryce became a fight director with Fight Directors, Canada in 1998 and Art of Combat in 2016 and has since fought and danced his way around North America and the UK.
As an actor he toured with the Broadway National Tour of Cats, has performed in 6 companies of Beauty and the Beast and was part of the original workshop production of Snow White for Disney Entertainment in California.
As a fight director he has choreographed the violence for musicals such as a national tour of The Scarlet Pimpernel, Beauty and the Beast, and George Stiles' The Three Musketeers and well as dozens of Shakespeare and modern theatre works; Bryce recently was the stunt coordinator for The House that Jack Built which premiered at the LA Film Festival, an HBO airing and recently at the Queens International Film Festival winning Audience Favorite and Best Director honors.
He can also be seen on six book covers as a well-armed assassin of the David Dalglish’s "Shadowdance" series. Bryce began working with the Paddy Crean workshop in 2000 and has been a workshop coordinator and instructor since 2003. See his website.
Aaron Orensky
Aaron Orensky has been pretending to fight since he could pick up a stick in his back yard as a kid and has never stopped.
Aaron has been studying theatrical and martial combat for over twenty years, beginning in college, then transitioning to the SAFD, the United Stuntmens Association, and finally rising through the ranks for Art of Combat. Throughout, he has been teaching, assisting, and participating in workshops around the world.
Aaron has worked on productions ranging from Lucretzia Borgia with The Washington National Opera at Kennedy Center in Washington DC, to The Three Musketeers in Volunteer Park in Seattle, WA, to the motion picture Lincoln. More recently he has given life to the violence for theatrical productions of Gloria, Cyrano deBergerac, Romeo and Juliet, MacBeth, Shakespeare in Love, End of War, Peter Pan, Pillowman, and various local film projects.
Aaron is the Director of the Virginia Stage Combat School and the Resident Fight Director of Cadence Theater in Richmond, VA.