Bullfighting Returns to Juarez on Friday

The best Mexican matador, Joselito Adame, will appear at the Antonio Balderas bullring in Juarez on May 4 at 8 p.m. along with Sebastian Castella, a French-born matador who usually makes his rounds in Spain, and a young matador by the name of Manuel Gaona, who will receive his alternativa (status) as a full-fledged matador in a brief ceremony on this occasion.  Castella was ranked 15th in the Spanish rankings last year, and Adame, 29, usually ranks in the top 20.  Both appeared in April at the prestigious Feria de Sevilla, and both will do the Fiesta de San Isidro in Madrid in June.  Today, May 1, Adame and El Juli, one of the the top 3 or 4 matadors in Spain for many years, will compete in a mano a mano in Aguascalientes, Mexico.  I saw El Juli about twenty years ago in Juarez, when he was 16 and absolutely fearless, in one of the most astonishingly daring and skilled performances I've ever seen.

Bullfighting has enjoyed a resurgence of popularity in the last 25 years, in great part because of major improvements in the quality of the bulls, bred to behave more predictably during a bullfight.  Today's fighting bull tends to be quicker, smoother in a charge, and has greater stamina.  This has greatly increased the percentage of bullfights that produce the sculptural, elegant passes, very close to the matador's body, that bring audiences to the edge of their seats as the matador, linking passes in quick succession, establishes a tense kind of rapport between himself and the bull.  This rapport, in turn, because the horns come so close to the body and the bull is beginning to show the punishment of the pic, tends to arouse in the spectator both fear (for the matador) and pity for the bull--emotions Aristotle said define tragedy, and which are purged by the death of the bull.  Spain is known for its tragic sense of life and for most Spanish bullfighting fans, the bull is the protagonist, and sometimes the hero, of the encounter.

Bullfights resumed at Balderas again in 2012, a few years after the Plaza Monumental in Juarez, a bigger bullring, was blown up to make room for a Walmart.  Balderas was built in 1957, and now hosts a limited number of bullfights per year.  There is only one more bullfight programed for this year at Balderas, date yet unknown.

Photo by Jose Z. Garcia at Balderas bullring in 2016