She lives for a deadly passion
Bullfighting has always traditionally been a masculine affair. Yet, when she enters the arena and embodies her wish, she gives rise to victory over cultural stereotypes.
Nevertheless, she doesn’t adhere to any ideal of feminism. Rather she fights for herself and rises to the challenge the way men do.
In 2016 I travelled to bullfighting schools in southern Spain, to follow several girls as they trained for their chosen profession, to be a < torera >.
Many kilometers and months later, when they allowed me to enter their world, I was awed by the determination who dwells in their bodies, their conscious training to face a bull of five hundred kilo, but even more the constant practice of death.
Often, they are daughters of mothers who never approve nor understand how they got the fever of the bulls, a virus for which there is no cure. They crave his close physical presence so that they can challenge him and in doing so challenge themselves.
At the age of 15, she has already killed her first bull.
She has no fear of physical pain, believing instead that from every wound inflicted on her body will flow wisdom, because only pain allows true knowledge.
The bullfight is the mise-en-scène of a paradox, where not without difficulty, coexist the spectacular of death of a legendary animal and the endless contradictions of human frailties.
Maria Grazia Granati
