Oh, the bulls.
I decided that I couldn’t live in Sevilla for one semester without going to a bullfight. Thus, I went to one. And, I not only went to a bullfight, I went to the last one of the season on September 27th, which was also the Fería de San Miguel. I didn’t know this before, but the Plaza de Toros (bullring) in Sevilla is one of the 2 most important bullrings in Spain. It is also the oldest bullring in Spain!
Corridas de Toros (bull fights) are always done with 6 bulls and 3 toreros (bullfighters). The 3 toreros on Sunday were Antonio Ferrera, Alejandro Talavante, and Daniel Luque.
Ferrera
Talavante
Luque
I would say that overall, the corrida de toros was a cultural event that I’m glad I went to. It was pretty gruesome, but… The ring has room for 12,500 people, and I would say that about 9,000-10,000 were there (guesstimation). It was very cool to see so many people and oddly felt as if we were at a football game, más o menos. Everytime the torero did something “daring,” the crowd would yell bien! or muy bien! or olé!. That was pretty amusing. There was a super aficionado sitting next to us and he was very into it. The whole thing lasted about 2 hours.
the opening procession. the men on the horses are known as picadores
this guy is called a banderillero and is holding really sharp sticks. He's getting ready to "pounce"...
this is Ferrera during his first round
look how many people there were!
Luque during his celebratory walk around the ring. Not to gross you out, but he's holding the orejas (ears) of the bull...
picture of the last bullfight. "action shot"
So each torero has a posse of helpers, including the picadores and banderilleros and some others. In fact, I didn’t even think that the torero did that much because he only entered the ring/fight near the end when the bull was already weakened. The torero uses a red cape, but his helpers used a neon pink and yellow cape (which, interestingly, matched the hot pinkness of their socks).
If you are so inclined, you can watch this video clip that I took (sorry, very low quality). But listen to all the people yelling and the band that just happened to be sitting right next to us! Don’t worry, there’s nothing in it that should make anyone squeamish. It actually just shows off the “skills” of Daniel Luque, the torero, whom the crowd went crazy over. He’s only 19 years old…aka younger than ME…what…
Hope this post wasn’t too gruesome!
Filed under: Bullfight, sights around sevilla | Leave a Comment
an attempt to record it all.
No Responses Yet to “Oh, the bulls.”