Bullfighting's Back for Good (or Bad)

Bogotá's Santamaria Bullfighting Stadium: Empty and lonely.

The plaza in its usual condition:
empty and unused.

In the latest round in the battle over bullfighting, the Constitutional Court has ruled that cities cannot ban bullfighting where it's traditional. That means that bullfighting will go on in Bogotá's Santamaria Plaza - for a while anyway. (Even if the bullfighters win in court, anybody who takes a look at bullfighting's aging audience can see that in another generation or two its fan base will check out permanently.)

Meanwhile, bullfighting's opponents are trying another strategy: calling on Bogotá's city government, which owns the Santamaria Bullfighting Plaza, not to rent it to the bullfighters.

Anti-bullfighting protesters.

Bicycle tourists outside the stadium.

That might be legally dubious, and it would also be a real pity. The bullfights would simply be shifted elsewhere, as they were while the Santamaria was being renovated a few years ago. Meanwhile, the handsome, Moorish stadium, would be even more abandoned than it is already.

One of the few uses, a tennis match.

The Santamaria stadium, built in 1931, centrally located and recently renovated, is, incomprehensibly, almost never used for events except for bullfights. If the bullfights move out, then this Bogotá landmark will be even more completely vacant than it is already.

The Santamaria would be great for cultural and musical events. Imagine afternoon jazz festivals, weekend theatre, children's sports...the possibilities are endless. The lack of activities is incomprehensible.

If the city puts the Santamaria to other uses, as it should, then by all means ban bullfighting there. But until that happens, let this Bogotá landmark at least be used for something.

The plaza's only visitors. tourists.

Anybody who reads this blog knows that I have a bit of cynical view toward the bullfighting protesters. Sure, bullfighting is cruel and seems like a holdover from the Dark Ages. However, other thngs, such as cockfighting and factory farming, are much crueler and affect many more animals. Why does only bullfighting get protested?

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Bullfighters Have Their Say

'We gave you our vote and you left us without work.' (I don't believe that they voted for Petro.)

Hunger-striking bullfighters

There have been lots of protests against bullfighting, but this was the first one I've seen in favor of la fiesta brava. Mayor Gustavo Petro hasn't allowed bullfighting in Bogotá's historic Santamaria Plaza for the last two years. Now, the city plans to spend millions remodeling the plaza, which has the bullfighting community worried that the mayor's real goal is to make the stadium unusable for bullfighting.

The bullfighters claim that, because the plaza is a designated historical landmark, remodeling is illegal. They also say that the remodeling plan includes transforming the plaza's stables into a parking lot, which would seem to make bullfights impractical. It's also a strange plan for a mayor who keeps promising to discourage use of the private automobile.

Even on hunger strike, bullfighters show their moves.

Hunger striking for bullfightig.

Welcome to the bullfighting university.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Is Olé Child's Play?

 

There's certainly something disturbing at seeing adults playing at killing, even if some people call it art. And it's more disturbing seeing children at it, as they were doing this morning in the Plaza Santamaria.

In any case, none of the young people practicing bullfighting in the mornings in Bogotá's Plaza de Toros Santamaria must know that the fiesta brava may not have a long-term future.

Bogotá Mayor Gustavo Petro declared an end to bullfighting in the city-owned plaza, which is the only place within the city limits for bullfighting. A court recently ruled that city governments can not ban bullfighting. The fight over bullfighting is sure to continue. The hopeful bullfighters told me they don't expect Bogotá's usual January-February season to take place in 2013. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

From Olé to....Iambic Pentameters?

A future classroom? The plaza's bull corrals, which may have seen their last quadripeds.

The plaza's grand, mosque-like entrance. 

Mayor Gustavo Petro announced yesterday that there will be no more bullfights in La Santamaria, Colombia and South America's most important arena for La Fiesta Brava. That means that, unless bullfighting advocates can win a court battle, bullfighting is over in Bogotá - at least as long as Petro is mayor.

That leaves the question of what to do with the handsome bullfighting arena, which was built in the 1930s and can seat over 13,000 people. Petro suggested that the stadium could be converted into "a place for young people to meet with poets and writers." Poetry and writing are great. But that seems like a strange use, particularly when the city has lots of classrooms and theatres which would be lots more comfortable and convenient than an eight-decade-old bullfighting stadium.

Las Torres del Parque, behind the bullfighting plaza. Their
residents have blocked the plaza from staging concerts.

But the stadium does have lots of potential. It's a handsome building located in the heart of Bogotá with a unique Moorish architecture similar to southern Spain. It's also got a great setting, sandwiched between the planetarium, Independence Park, La Macarena neighborhood and the National and Modern art museums. And, as the TransMilenium line on 26th St. and a planned light rail line gets built on Ave. Septima, the plaza will have great transit access as well.

Old bullfighting posters in El Rincon Taurino,
across the street.

How about turning it into a cultural center, with spaces for theatre, movies, a library and small concerts. Large concerts have generated objections from the residents of Las Torres del Parque behind the stadium, who've even filed a lawsuit against the plaza. As a result, even when bullfighting has gone on, the stadium is empty and unused some ten months of the year.

A future poetry room? Visitors inside one of the bull corrals. 

Bullfights do move a lot of money - particularly because their fans tend to be wealthy, and the blocks around the plaza have several bullfighting-themed bars and restaurants. I went inside El Rincon Taurino, a tiny, two-room bar decorated with tattered bullfighting posters in which a crowd of mixed ages was drinking after-work beers.

Beside the plaza is the planetarium's dome. 

The owners, surprisingly, didn't seem to mind bullfighting's possible demise. But they said the city needed to find another use for the stadium, which the man called 'a white elephant.'

"But if they use it for concerts, then those fools in the towers complain," the man said, "and if they have bullfights, then there are protests."

The mayor of Medellin has followed Petro's lead, saying that Colombia's second-largest city will no longer finance bullfights there. However, Cartagena, which has not held bullfights for a long time, is organizing them again.

Related posts:

A Bullfighter's Philosophy

'Why I Want to be a Bullfighter'

Amateur Bullfighting Scenes, 2011

Bogotá's Last Bullfight?

No More Olé in Bogotá?

Time to Fold Up That Capote

The bullfighting students are still out there practicing their veronicas.

Many a bull has walked down this tunnel to meet his death.

 

 

Sunset for bullfighting?

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Sunset for La Fiesta Brava?

}the Moorish Santamaria Plaza,
with Las Torres del Parque behind.

Tomorrow begins the 2012 bullfighting season in Bogotá's Plaza de Toros Santamaria. It will be the bullring's 81st - and perhaps final - bullfighting season.

Just-inaugurated Mayor Gustavo Petro said that Bogotá should reconsider public spectacles which involve death. He's also barring public entities such as the phone and electricity companies from financing bullfighting with their advertising.

The mayor's is a sensible, humane perspective - but banning bullfighting here would mean the end of a long and storied tradition, as well as eliminate the jobs of people who breed and raise fighting bulls, work in the stadium and sell bullfighting paraphernalia - as well as the bullfighters themselves. And the aspiring bullfighters who train in the Santamaria plaza would be left without a profession.

A protester stands before a line of anti-riot police outside the bullfighting stadium.

La Santamaria is South America's most important bullfighting stadium and Colombia is the world's third biggest bullfighting nation, after Spain and Mexico. So, shuttering La Santamaria would be a real blow to bullfighting.

Fans buy tickets outside
Santamaria Plaza. 

Much crueler than bullfighting, in my opinion, is cockfighting, which is also legal and practiced throughout Colombia. But while bullfighting is a big public spectacle involving lots of people and infrastructure, cockfights can be held in a backyard - and undoubtedly would continue even if  banned.

Tied up with the anti-bullfighting campaign is undoubtedly a class issue, since bullfighting fans tend to be wealthy, and the ranchers who raise fighting bulls belong to the traditional landowning elite. In contrast, cockfighting is more of a blue collar activity. Also, bullfights attract lots of media, while cockfights go unreported.

Detail from a poster advertising a bullfight. 

And, if elected officials are really concerned about animal rights, they ought to look at the living and dying conditions of the countless animals which are raised and slaughtered every day to feed this carnivorous nation. Bullfighting bulls live well (and for much longer than animals raised for meat or milk) and a bullfight lasts only about 20 minutes. But animals raised in industrial agriculture often live their whole lives crowded into stalls and standing in their own wastes. But their suffering happens outside of our sight and sensibilities.

And if it's the public morality that's worrying the new mayor, he might also look at all the gratuitous violence in movies, television and video games. 

Most bullfighting fans, such as this woman walking past riot police and protesters outside of the stadium, are upper class Colombians.

The mayor proposed that the plaza's bullfights could leave out the final, killing blow. That would be rather hypocritical, since the bulls would be killed anyway out of sight after leaving the plaza. And the death stab, which if done skillfully is relatively humane, is considered the climax of the fight. Perhaps surprisingly, a French bullfighter quoted by El Tiempo sounded open to that change. But Spanish and Colombian bullfighters are more likely to oppose it.

In any case, bullfighting's days are numbered: the sport or art was recently restricted in Ecuador and prohibited in Spain's Catalunia province. And it's simply not something which many young people are fans of. So, if politics and animal rights activists do not eliminate la fiesta brava, then chronology likely will.

Poster advertising a bullfighting school.

Mayor Petro is right to say that the city should seek more uses for the handsome Santamaria Plaza, which is located near the center of town, near museums, Independence Park and the hip La Macarena neighborhood. Now, the plaza is seldom used for anything besides bullfighting, which occupies the plaza only about eight weekends each year. The other 350 days or so, it generally sits empty, except for tourists and aspiring bullfighters. Once, Camilo Villegas held a golfing demonstration there, and two years ago Colombia and the United States played a Davis Cup tournament match in the plaza. And very occasionally concerts are held there.

Bullfighting paraphernalia for sale. 

Putting the plaza to more use is especially relevant right now, when the city is talking about spending a fortune and impacting wetlands to build a new concert stadium near Simon Bolivar Park, as well as possibly demolishing and rebuilding the El Campin soccer stadium.

Of course, Santamaria Plaza, with seating for only 13 - 14,000 spectators squeezed in, won't do for megaevents. But for small concerts and artistic events it's an attractive, centrally-located venue.

Nevertheless, getting more use out of the place won't be so easy. It is managed by the Corporacion Taurina, which will surely resist any use which threatens the bullfights. And the economically and socially influential residents of the Torres del Parque apartment buildings behind the plaza object strongly to the noise from concerts.

The Santamaria Plaza has a handsome Moorish arquitecture. 

Fight to the death: Bullfighting poster. 

'Bullfighting is art and culture.' Bullfighting advocates put up these posters calling on Mayor Petro to preserve la fiesta brava. 

Related entries: 'Why I want to be a bullfighter.'

A bullfighter's philosophy

No More Olé!

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours