Plaza de Toros offers "la brava fiesta"

[Author's note: Grupo Mac remembered that a Web site might be a good feature for a 21st-century newspaper to have, so here's the most recent story that's on www.thenews.com.mx).

BY MARIA GALLUCCI
The News
Thursday, Dec. 24

It starts with the quick thud of charging hooves and the graceful shuffle of the matador's feet. Horns lowered and cape raised, the dance begins. The dramatic act continues with flashes of red and huffs of rage until finally, somebody falls.

It is, as Juan Castañera says, the art of the “corrida de toro,” or bullfight.

The controversial colonial tradition has persevered in small Mexican villages and booming metropolises alike, with suspenseful shows drawing thousands of spectators into open fields and grandiose plazas each year.

In Mexico City, the biggest bullfight season of the year is already underway at the Plaza de Toros, a stadium that plaza spokesman Castañera called the biggest bullfighting arena worldwide in terms of capacity. The bullring, located near the city's Ciudad de los Deportes neighborhood, can hold around 40,000 people.

The season began in November and will offer fights every Sunday through the end of February next year. The next fight is slated for Dec. 27. The plaza publishes its lineup of international matadors, also called “toreros,” each Tuesday before the fight on its Web site.

“The torero in his moment is creating art, and this has inspired many writers, artists and painters to transfer this to their works,” Castañera told The News. “This art is glued to our culture, our music, our poetry.”

The spokesman explained that bullfighting, or the “fiesta brava,” came to Mexico along with the Spanish colonizers some 400 years ago. The first fiestas were very rudimentary but began to define themselves as the Spaniards pegged bullfighting to pagan celebrations for each pueblo's patron saint, effectively expanding the Catholic faith through Spanish culture and religion.

As the bullfights spread to larger capital cities, such as Tijuana, Monterrey and Guadalajara, the tradition outgrew the limited, once-a-year celebrations and broadened to include year-round fiestas at centrally located plazas dedicated to the sport.

Mexico City's Plaza de Toros was built on Feb. 5, 1946, and nearly every year since then has held a smaller season from July to October and a larger one at the end of the year, with a grand anniversary celebration that takes place in February.

At the fights, the matador attracts the bull with a large red cape and twists his body to dodge the charging animal. A pair of picadors is often close by on horseback, jabbing the bull with lances.

In the end, regardless of whether the matador wins or the bull defeats him, the bull is killed with a sword to the heart.

Over time, the nationwide shows also matured from inexperienced matadors with young bulls to professional bullfighters challenging adult bulls. Imagery also became a large part of the spectacle, with matadors dressing in distinctive suits of a fitted jacket with embellished shoulder pads and matching cropped pants exposing colorful tights. A simple felt hat and flat black shoes often round off the outfit.

Castañera said that he did not think raising and killing bulls purely for spectacle is particularly cruel to the animals. He reiterated the industry position that bulls are raised in small land preserves and that the protected species would not exist if not for bullfighting.

“These animals would otherwise be killed in the fields because they are a danger to the people,” he said. “These animals are preserved because of the 'corridas.'”

On the other hand, many animal rights activists and, recently, Mexican legislators have spoken out loudly to the contrary.

The Mexico City-based Gente Por la Defensa Animal (People in Defense of Animals) said on its Web site (www.gepda.org) that bullfighting was neither art nor graceful theatrics, but rather the science of torture in which the bull and horses are subjected to miserable conditions before the event and a slow, painful death during the show.

“It is not humane to attend these events. These traditions do not belong in the 21st century,” the group wrote.

Last week, members of the Mexico City legislature (ALDF) presented an initiative that would modify the stipulations of the law Public Performance and Protection of Animal in the Federal District.

“Our intention is not to prohibit the bullfights, but rather prevent the torture until death of the bulls,” Christian Vargas of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) recently told the Mexican press.

“If we want to stop being a capital of the Third World, we have to change our mentality and the laws to better protect non-human living beings,” he told the press.

Bullfighting has already been banned in nearly 10 countries in Latin America and Europe. The Canary Islands in Spain and most of France have also banned bullfighting, although nationally the fights are permitted.