Sevilla and Bullfighting

My friend Ryan is a Fulbright scholar in Sevilla, though his scholarship is not for teaching but is rather a dual performance/research scholarship, and Ryan's passion is flamenco. Flamenco is a uniquely Spanish form of dance characterized by many recognizable tropes, including the long, often black and red dresses of the women (known as a bata de cola); the classical guitar that strums minor key but rhythmical chords; the people clapping their hands in the background to the beat (palmeros); and most centrally highlighted, the dancer who uses rapid, successive foot taps, gyrating wrists, and snapping fingers to express a world of emotion with their body and face. It is a very Spanish form of dance and figures in many caricatures and stereotypes of Spain.

The cathedral was too large and occupied too many square
meters to capture all of it within one photo on my camera

Ryan had a flamenco performance last weekend, and knowing that I wanted to come to Sevilla to see a city of so much renown and historical import, he invited me to see him dance and spend the weekend in Sevilla, and I happily accepted. I caught the most economical form of transportation (the bus, which is also the slowest method of arrival) to Sevilla on Thursday afternoon and arrived late Thursday night to Ryan's smiling face waiting for me in the bus station. The next morning began my official tour of the city. Ryan had to spend a bulk of the day preparing for his event that evening, so I took it upon myself to see the things in the city that interested me and struck me as worthy of visiting during my limited time. Fortunately, much of Sevilla's touristy gems are located right within the center of the city (which is true for many cities, I suppose), so I headed to the central plaza where I was greeted by one of the most stunning cathedrals I've ever seen in my life. Spain is simply a land of incredible cathedrals, and though some of my Spanish friends tire of these "predictable" churches, they never cease to astound me, probably because I'm an American and wasn't raised in a society in which a gigantic Gothic cathedral can be expected in any given city of a certain population. This is why Europe is so intoxicating and pleasantly overwhelming to an American: it's steeped in history to the point that you can almost become inured to just how ancient and marvelous everything around you truly is. I, for one, am not hardened to it yet, and that is why my poor readers have to endure my descriptions of cathedrals every week that I post and my excessive use of the words "intricate" and "stunning." Trust me, though, these cathedrals really are intricate and stunning. :)

The elaborate archways and entrances to
cathedrals are always enthralling to me

The cathedral was a stunning edifice, so full of rooms that it actually required a chunk of time to experience it properly. Unbeknowst to me, one of the two places that claims to be the final resting place of Christopher Columbus is the cathedral in Sevilla, so I stopped and paid homage at the mausoleum where one of history's most important people rests. Columbus is the reason that the principal languages spoken in the American continent are Spanish, Portuguese, and English rather than nahuatl and quechua. Columbus and his maritime endorsement from Isabel of Castilla is the reason that Spanish is spoken in around 20 countries in the contemporary world. Columbus is the reason I'm a white, anglophone American. This man shaped the course of history, and it was stunning to be beside his beautiful grave and attempt to consider the truly unfathomable reaches of his fortuitous and accidental discovery.

One corner of the magnificent cathedral is a famous tower called la Giralda, once used as the prayer minaret when the building was a Muslim mosque before the Christian reconquest of Spain. Visitors are allowed to ascend the tower, and the view of Sevilla from on top was fascinating because the city, for all of its charm and history, is not a gem of European structural design but rather looks like a somewhat crammed city where a Mediterranean people try to survive the scorching estival heat. Southern Spain is quite different from that of the north, and the Muslim and African roots and influence absolutely survive to this day.

In that central plaza was also a square building known as the Archivo de Indias, or the general archives of the "Indies." It is the single most important research archive of information on the conquest and settlement of the Americas by the Spanish empire and boasts a fascinating collection of documents, including handwritten letters from Columbus to the Spanish Crown at the time (Isabel and Fernando), correspondence between Felipe II and his New World viceroys in which he explains exactly how even the minutia must be executed in his empire's new land, and other things of the sort. This was history at its finest--overwhelming, perplexing, and explanatory.

That evening, Ryan had his performance. The female dancer who went before him is a passionate and fabulous dancer, and I felt like it would be difficult to follow her and attempt to fill those (flamenco style) shoes. Ryan, however, was absolutely the star of the spectacle. With his feet moving a mile a minute and his torso and hands alternating between slower motions of feeling the rising and falling of the music and then sudden, graceful actions at the height of the passion, it was quite the show to watch. All of the audience members, myself included, shouted "anda," "ala," and "olé" multiple times as his art moved us to verbal ejaculations. It was a great show, and afterwards Ryan, his cool cousin Kara (more on her later) and I went out with his Sevilla friends and flamenco cohorts to celebrate.

Though the photo quality is poor and the picture fuzzy, this
highlights how dynamic flamenco is and how much it needs
to be felt and experienced live and firsthand

 Once Ryan was finished with his performance, he and his cousin Kara were able to spend the rest of their time with me. We went to the real alcázar (royal stronghold) that was built in the Moorish architectural style, and it was unexpectedly fantastic. I was so impressed that I still maintain that it rivals Granada's Alhambra and truly is a close second, though it doesn't get even a quarter of the mentions that the Alhambra does.  



Open-air patios with shallow ponds, accentuating flora, and
millions of small, glimmering azulejos (tiles) make for
beautiful spaces in Muslim architecture

Sevilla is also home to the most beautiful plaza that I have ever seen, called the Plaza de España. It was built for an enormous art and culture exposition that Sevilla hosted more than a hundred years ago, and it remains as a tranquil, beautiful monument just a brief walk away from the center of the city in a placid, verdant park. By the way, if it looks familiar to you, it's because Star Wars: The Attack of the Clones filmed it for one of its scenes! Yup, that's right, folks. This plaza in Sevilla was used for a scene when Amidala and Anakin Skywalker are on Naboo. Check it out by clicking here. (The clip is dubbed in Spanish, like many foreign films in Spain are, which is why some Spaniards believe they struggle much more than other Europeans to learn foreign languages.)

Once I had said good-bye to Ryan and caught the bus back home on Sunday afternoon, I had a ticket to see my first bull fight here in Madrid. I went alone and sat alone, and given that the enormous bull ring (called "Las Ventas") was not even a quarter sold out, there was no one sitting next to me at all. A bull fight is a very ritualized process in which six bulls are killed in a systematic, colorful, ceremonial way. The bull is first let loose into the ring where about six men with shiny pieces of thick cloth (called a capote) induce it to run between them by making noises and waving their pink capotes at it. Next enter two men on heavily protected horses. These men have long spears, and they are given a few minutes to hit the bull. When they spear the bull, he gets angry and attacks the horse, and two horses in my show were knocked over. The poor horses are totally blind-folded so that they don't run from the angry bull, and it was sad to see such a majestic creature knocked over and blind on the ground.

The poor horse is largely defenseless on the ground. The
bull has to be distracted so that the men in red can lift the
horse up and remove it from the ring.

The bloody bull receives its fatal wound from the colorful
matador, whose sword is deep inside the bull's entrails

The bull now has a long strip of bloody hide on its back due to the spears. Next come a series of bull fighters whose job it is to run to the bull with two small, colorful spikes, jump, and implant the pikes into his back. Oftentimes the spikes stick in his back, and oftentimes they fall out. Once these spikers are done, the matador, or killer, comes out. He has the red capote and a sword, and he is the typical bull fighter image that we think of in the United States. He taunts the bull, which is very bloody and weaker by now, and wins the audience's applause. Then, when he's ready, he uses his capote just right so that he can approach the bull head on and plunge a sword through its back down to its heart. There were three matadores in my show who each had two bulls a piece. Two of them were pretty bad at the mortal sword plunge and had to try multiple times before their bulls expired. One of them "lost" to the bull and the bull scooped it up in his horns and threw him to the ground, and the crowd all gasped and stood to its feet. The bull then slowly staggers and eventually collapses to the ground where it is stabbed once again to make sure it is dead before its body is hauled around the ring and then out by a pack of horses.

My opinions, you ask? I think I can say that I am slightly against the practice. At the end of the day, it is the torture and slow killing of an animal, even if it is shrouded in spectacle and sport. The bull spurts blood out of its mouth and gets its back and guts stabbed repeatedly for about half an hour before it finally dies of blood loss, exhaustion, and punctured heart and lungs. If my description sounds gross, it's because it is gross. The thing is, though, if we eat chicken that is given hormones to make its breasts larger, so large that it can't stand on its feet, and then we have to clip its beak because its so miserable in its poopy-smelling, crowded cage where no light ever penetrates that it pecks its own flesh, is that much better? Is it much better to tie up a baby cow so that it can't even move which will mean more tender veal on our plates when we slaughter the young thing that never even had a chance to move? I guess I think we need to be consistent about our beliefs. Bull fighting is animal cruelty for sure, but if we oppose bull fighting, we should also oppose other forms of torturing sentient life forms. I don't oppose eating meat like I used to because I think it's part of the cycle of life and a nutrient source that can be healthy for humans. But we're an ethical creature with a capacity to philosophize and to love, and I think we should raise animals in a healthy, natural way and then slaughter them as quickly and then painlessly as possible. There's my soapbox for the day! I've opined, and I hope you do, too, even if you disagree.

Despite the fact that I think I'm slightly against bull fights, I have no regrets about seeing the one I saw. It was fascinating and made me feel uncomfortable in the best of ways. I kept thinking that this was the closest I would ever get to understanding Roman gladiator battles (which many anthropologists think were the predecessors and origin of the bull fights) or bear and bull baiting done in Elizabethan England during Shakespeare's day. I learned so much and am grateful I went.

A week from yesterday, my parents and my two youngest siblings come to Spain for summer vacations, and then we fly home to the good ol' US of A! I can't wait to give you all enormous hugs!