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Writing on Bullfighting for HuffPo
I’ve been away from An American in Lima for a little while (understatement) but thanks to my friend Levi Novey, aka Mr Green HuffPost, I’m getting a bigtime nudge to return to blogging. Which I do love doing, by the way. Levi let me hijack his column today to guest rant about bullfighting (The Twisted Temptations of Bullfighting in Peru). It’s a confession about the thing I experienced at Acho that I never wrote about before. Call it my testosterone moment in the bullring. The column includes nice photos by El Fotografo, by the way. I only went to the bullfights twice in Lima but I still think about what…
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Confessions of a Redhead in the Callejón: What I Learned at the Bullfights
November 29’s corrida marked the penultimate bullfight of the Señor de los Milagros festival, held in Lima’s historic Plaza de Acho bullring. The last day to see bullfighting in Peru’s capital is December 6, next Sunday. (Ticket information here.) My husband, El Fotografo, and I haven’t gone to any of the corridas this year, and we don’t plan to. EF is grossed out by bullfighting, even though he admits the sport makes for great picture-taking, especially when you have permission to stand inside the callejón, as we did last November. (The callejón is the low-walled alley surrounding the bullring where the toreros enter and exit the sand circle or ruedo. Occasionally a bull will leap or knock over the wooden wall, injuring…
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Writing on Bullfighting for HuffPo
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Matador David Galan, in Plaza de Acho
Can you say attitude? This Spanish torero fought at Plaza de Acho last November. He was a show stopper who would do anything to please the crowd — even throw off his shoes and kneel in the sand before the bull.
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Vegan Antitaurino Activist, Plaza San Martin, Lima, Peru
Animal-rights protestor Jessica Santilla, demonstration at Plaza San Martin, Lima, Peru, Nov. 2008 / photo c. Jorge Vera El Fotografo and I met this protestor at an antitaurino (anti-bullfighting) rally held on the opening day of the Plaza de Acho bullfights, last November. Jessica Santillan is 20 years old, a student and an ardent vegan. Unlike many of the antitaurinos I met in Lima that day, Santillan believes that slaughtering animals for food is as morally reprehensible as killing bulls in the bullring. She and her boyfriend were holding up a sign that said “Neither bulls in the Plaza nor cattle in the slaughterhouse.” They were wearing matching toro outfits and chained together. Some of the demonstrators…
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Bullfighting Thrives Amid Growing Protests in Peru
Peruvian bullfighter Fernando Roca Rey, Acho stadium, Lima, Nov. 2, 2008; photo c. Jorge Vera My news feature on bullfighting in Peru appears on the front page of today’s Miami Herald (“Many protest bullfighting in Peru“), with photos by El Fotografo. The Herald edited the story and retitled it to put more emphasis on the antitaurinos (bullfighting protestors) than I did in my original version, which I titled, “Bullfighting Thrives Amid Growing Protests in Peru” (see my original below). The subject of bullfighting intrigued me because the tradition is undergoing a curious revival in Lima — curious because while attendance is rising at the Acho bullfights, there’s also a growing countermovement to end bullfighting in…
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Interview with Bullfighter José Uceda Leal: “Women like to see a man face death”
Spanish bullfighter Jose Uceda Leal before his first corrida at Plaza de Acho, Lima, Nov. 1, 2008: , photo c. Jorge Vera 2008 Born and trained in Madrid, José Igacio Uceda Leal ranks among the top toreros in Spain. Tall and slender, the 31-year-old bullfighter moves in the ring with an elegant, commanding presence. When he’s not dancing with bulls or stabbing them through the aorta, Uceda Leal is prone to giving introspective, rather philosophical answers to questions from the press. “In life and in bullfighting, there are moments that are real trials by fire,” he told a reporter in 1999, “some of which you cannot imagine, but which raise you up as…
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Photo of the Day: Female Bullfighter Milagros Sanchez at Plaza de Acho
19-year-old Peruvian bullfighter Milagros Sanchez kneels in the sands of Acho, Nov. 1, 2008; photo copyright Jorge Vera 2008 This year’s Señor de los Milagros (Lord of the Miracles) bullfight festival (Nov. 1 – 23), held in the historic Plaza de Acho bullring, began in a rather unorthodox way. (1) One minute prior to the start of the Nov. 1 novillada, at 3:40 p.m., an earthquake registering 4.3 on the Richter scale shook the city. (2) Two female bullfighters, Milagros Sanchez (Peru) and Lulu de la Vega (Mexico) took their places in the ring. It was the first time in 32 years that women had competed at Acho. Also in the ring that day was little…
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Anti-bullfighting Protests Heat up in Lima
Public outrage over animal cruelty in bullfighting is mounting in Lima, home to the famed Senor de los Milagros bullfighting festival (Nov. 2 – 23, 2008). The festival takes place in Plaza de Acho, the oldest bullring in the Americas and the second-oldest in the world. Say hello to my little friend: Anti-bullfighting posters in Lima feature a blood-crazed matador a la Tony Montana (poster: www.peruantitaurino.org) Last Sunday, November 2, about 300 members of the group Peru Antitaurino rallied at the Plaza San Martin, in downtown Lima, to protest the start of the month-long festival. (The Spanish word for “antibullfighting” is “antitaurino.”) The protestors marched at 2;30 p.m. to Acho…
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The Great Leveler
Sand leveller Carlos Echevarria, Plaza de Acho, Lima; photo c. Jorge Vera 2008 Carlos Echevarria has been leveling the arena at Lima’s Plaza de Acho bullring for 35 years. It is his job to cart in fresh sand, spread it over the 60-meter-wide arena and pack it into a firm, even surface. Then a pair of workers uses a rope and spike to draw concentric circles inside the 360-degree arena, to mark where the bulls and matadors will fight. Echevarria watches to make sure that the circles are neat and round. Built in 1766, the Plaza de Acho arena is the oldest bullring in the Americas, the second oldest in the world after La Maestranza, in Seville,…
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Spanish Bullfighter Gets Gored in Nuts, Drops out of Peru Bullfight Festival
“There’s no way to be a great matador and not get gored.” That’s what Bob Simon of 60 Minutes drew from his experiences while reporting on bullfighters in Spain, and it’s an ethos shared by most professional matadors. (Click here to read about Simon’s getting gored himself while researching his story.) Horrendous groin accidents are part of the job, which involved shimmying as close as possible to the horns of a furious 2,000-pound beast. (What were people thinking when they invented this sport?) A particularly brutal bullfight in Madrid earlier this month left several matadors bleeding in their partes nobles (literally, “noble parts,” or gonads), among them Miguel Angel Perera of Spain.…
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Beefcake at the Corrida: Photos of Tauros and Toreros in Acho 2008
Matador David Galan, who stars in the Nov. 2 corrida Raging bulls, elaborate torture rituals, hot sun and sand, seriously handsome guys in skin-tight outfits skewering animals through the aeorta: Lima’s Feria de Acho bullfight season (Nov. 2 – 23, 2008) showcases raw, in-your-face Spanish-style bullfighting, and the Peruvian crowds love it. Spanish matador Uceda Leal, of Madrid, who fights in the first Acho corrida, Nov. 2 It’s death and seduction and sadism all wrapped in the stiff trappings of Spanish colonialism: arcane rules, classist seating arrangements, trumpet calls, elegant brocaded jackets. The event exerts a weird, insidious fascination on some foreigners who might otherwise never be caught dead (lol) at a ritual animal slaughter. Just purchasing a ticket and braving the…
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Make Way for the Matadors
Back in the United States, tension and uncertainty are mounting to excruciating levels as November 4 nears. One guy will win, one guy will lose, and the specters of voting improprieties and riot police haunt many Americans’ visions of what might happen on Election Day 2008. Hopefully the presidential candidates’ “duel to the death” will be metaphoric, not literal. Here in Peru, the end of October signals the arrival of another highly anticipated, combative event: bullfighting season. The blood shed in Lima’s historic Plaza de Acho stadium this November is certain to be real, however. South America’s oldest bullfighting ring (c. 1766) draws crowds for its annual festival of Spanish-style…
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El Híjo Weighs in on Bullfighting
After our encounter with Peru’s famous child matador yesterday morning, El Híjo and I hunted down a YouTube video of 10-year-old “El Andi” at the 2008 Las Palmas fiesta. Figure 1: Peru’s boy matador Andrés Roca Rey, at in the “Senor de los Milagros” bullfighting festival, in the historic Ancho bullring, in Lima, Nov. 4, 2007, by Martin Mejia (AP) The footage started out great: El Andi executing beautiful passes, tossing his silken hair in true matador fashion, the young bull charging at him with alarming ferocity. The boy’s presence and athleticism were riveting – or so I thought. “Can you believe that’s the nice kid we just met in the…
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Boy Bullfighters in the Park
The boy in the grey t-shirt swept out his arm and arched his torso in an elegant bow-shape as the “bull” charged within an inch of his hip. Then he pivoted on one foot and flicked the cape at his opponent’s head. The red fabric spun and twirled, daring the sharp, curved horns to come closer. They were two Limeno kids, dressed in tracksuits and sneakers, practicing bullfighting passes in Parque Leoncio Prado this morning. One boy held a pair of bull’s horns mounted to a wooden handle. The other boy took turns practicing with red and pink capes and various swords. Nearby on a park bench, a slim middle-aged man called out instructions and exhorted them to…
