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Bullring

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For the retail complex in Birmingham, UK, see Bull Ring, Birmingham. For other uses, see Bull Ring (disambiguation).
Málaga's bullring lies in the heart of the city.
Façade of the oldest bullring in Spain, La Maestranza in Seville.
The Plaza México, which is situated in Mexico City, is the world's largest bullring.
The facade of the Arena of Nîmes in Nîmes, a converted Roman amphitheatre
The Plaza de toros de Ronda.
The Plaza de toros de Chinchón.

A bullring is an arena where bullfighting is performed. Bullrings are often associated with the Iberian Peninsula, but they can also be found through Iberian America and in a few Spanish and Portuguese ex-colonies in Africa. Bullrings are often historic and culturally significant centres that bear many structural similarities to the Roman amphitheatre.

Common structure

The classic bullring is an enclosed, roughly circular amphitheatre with tiered rows of stands that surround an open central space. The open space forms the arena or ruedo, a field of densely packed crushed rock (albero) that is the stage for the bullfight. Also on the ground level, the central arena is surrounded by a staging area where the bullfighters prepare and take refuge, called the callejón (alley). The callejón is separated from the arena by a wall or other structure, usually made of wood and roughly 140 cm high. The partition wall has doors for the entrance and exit of the bull (puerta de los toriles) and human participants (puerta de cuadrilla), although the form, number, and placement of these doors will vary from one bullring to another. In regular places, the wall is pushed outwards leaving splits (burladero, from burlar: to evade, to dodge) that allow the bullfighters to go in the arena and to take refuge but are too narrow for the bull. Nevertheless, on rare occasions the bull jumps the wall causing havoc in the corridor. The walls also have a type of stirrup or foothold that aids in crossing over to the central arena, and sometimes stirrups on the arena side as well; these are used mostly by event staff if they need to intervene quickly in the case of an emergency. The arena is surrounded by climbing rows of seats. The seats are priced differently according to the position of the sun during the show, normally in the afternoon. The hot sol, "sun", is cheaper than the fresher sombra, "shade".

Architectural origins

Bullrings evolved as specialized sporting arenas hand-in-hand with the sport that demanded them. Many of the ancient Roman amphitheatres had characteristics that can be seen in the bullrings of today (in fact the ring in Nîmes, France, is a Roman artifact,[1] though it is more elliptical than the usual plaza), and the origin of bullfighting is very closely related to certain Roman traditions; in the formative years of the sport on the Iberian Peninsula, those Roman enclosures were not commonly utilised for bullfighting events. Back when bullfighting festivals were conducted principally on horseback, the spectacle was a more public affair that took place in the city's open plaza areaIt was only later, when bullfights were conducted principally by men on foot, that the public needed a structure to house them appropriately. Initially, temporary wooden fences were erected to prevent the bulls from escaping. When bullfights became much more popular in 18th century, not only did the crowd need special seating to view the spectacle, they also needed a structure to contain the general disorder that reigned at festivals during the heyday of such legendary figures as Costillares, Pedro Romero, and Pepe-Hillo.

For centuries, early cosos (from Latin cursum, meaning course, track) were rectangular. The earliest examples are found in the Sierra de Huelva, which was the destination of transhumance routes from León, who brought some of their culture with them, including the feast of San Mamés, mostly associated with northern Spain. It was precisely in the hamlet of San Mamés, between Aroche and Rosal de la Frontera, where the oldest documented coso was built in 1599.[2] Very little of the structure of this rectangular arena remains, which has been extensively documented by local historian Antonio Rodríguez Guillén "Chamizo".[3] Another old coso was built in Almonaster la Real in 1608, and the nearby plaza from Campofrío, completed in 1718, is among the oldest with a circular shape.[4] The oldest plaza still in use, Las Virtudes in Santa Cruz de Mudela, Ciudad Real, dates from 1641 and has a square shape. The plaza from Béjar (1711) was originally rectangular and later made circular. Likewise, when the La Maestranza bullring in Seville was authorized for construction in 1730 specifically to house bullfights, the original plans called for a rectangular arena for the first three years, only later to be changed to a circular form that avoided the cornering of the action and put all viewers at the same approximate distance, the same reason for the elliptical form of amphitheatres. Another circular plaza was begun in Ronda in 1754, and it featured its first bullfights in 1782.

In the late 19th century, the Neo-Mudéjar style became in vogue for plazas, involving decoration in visible brickwork. Since the 1990s, new construction technology allows some rings to be covered permanently or temporarily.

Alternative uses

A Pass in the Bullring, in 1870, Seville, by painter José Jiménez Aranda.

The primary purpose of the ring is bullfighting, but it is usually limited to some festival weeks in the year. In other times, it may be used as a concert venue as in the Rock en el ruedo tour of Miguel Ríos or the live record Diamonds & Rust in the Bullring, featuring a Joan Baez concert in the Bilbao plaza.

Before the diffusion of modern sports premises, bullrings were used in the Basque Country for traditional sports similar to challenges of resistance running. The public made bets on the number of laps the runner could make. No bulls were involved.

After the battle of Badajoz (1936) of the Spanish Civil War, the Badajoz ring was used as a confinement camp for supporters of the republic and many thousands were executed there by the Nationalist forces who had just occupied the town.

Most indoor bullrings, especially in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America, in addition to being used for concerts, have also been used for indoor sports such as basketball, ice hockey, boxing and lucha libre.

Bullrings of the world

The most famous bullrings in the world are Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas in Madrid (Spain), widely regarded as the most prestigious one, La Maestranza in Seville (Spain), Campo Pequeno in Lisbon (Portugal) and Plaza de Toros México in Mexico City.[citation needed]

Europe

Spain

Major venues in Spain
Local venues in Spain

Portugal

Campo Pequeno Bullring

France

Villages round the Camargue, such as Rodilhan in the Gard, who also practise 'mise à mort' - killing the bull.

Africa

Algeria

Angola

Morocco

Mozambique

Americas

Mexico

Argentina

Colombia

Santamaría Bullring

Ecuador

Peru

The colonial Plaza de toros de Acho in Lima, Peru, opened on 30 January 1766.
  • Plaza de toros de Acho, Lima. 2nd oldest. 30 January 1766.
  • Plaza de Toros Sol y Sombra, Lima
  • Plaza de Toros de la Provincia de Cutervo, Cajamarca
  • Plaza de Toros "El Vizcaíno", Cajamarca
  • Plaza de Toros de Trujillo "El Coliseo", Trujillo
  • Plaza de Toros de El Coliseo, Huancayo
  • Plaza de Toros de Sicaya, Huancayo
  • Plaza de Toros de la Unión, Huánuco
  • Plaza de Toros de Guadalupe, Ica
  • Plaza de Toros de Puquío, Ayacucho.

Uruguay

Venezuela

United States

  • Santa Maria Bullring, San Isidro, Texas

Bullrings by capacity

# Bullring Location Capacity Image
1 Plaza de toros México Mexico City, Mexico 41,262
2 Plaza de toros Monumental de Valencia Valencia, Venezuela 24,708
3 Las Ventas Madrid, Spain 23,798
4 Plaza Monumental de Tijuana Tijuana, Mexico 21,621
5 Plaza de Toros de Pamplona Pamplona, Spain 19,720
6 Plaza Nuevo Progreso Guadalajara, Mexico 16,561
7 Plaza de toros Monumental de Aguascalientes Aguascalientes, Mexico 16,000
8 Plaza Monumental Román Eduardo Sandia Mérida, Venezuela 16,000
9 Plaza de toros Monumental de Maracaibo Maracaibo, Venezuela 15,000
10 Plaza de toros de La Merced Huelva, Spain 15,000
11 Plaza de toros de Murcia Murcia, Spain 15,000
12 Plaza Monumental de toros de Pueblo Nuevo San Cristóbal, Venezuela 15,000
13 Plaza de toros de Vista Alegre Bilbao, Spain 14,781
14 Plaza de toros Cañaveralejo Cali, Colombia 14,368
15 Plaza de toros de Granada Granada, Spain 14,000
16 Plaza de toros de los Califas Córdoba, Spain 14,000
17 Plaza de toros de Acho Lima, Peru 13,700
18 Plaça de bous de València Valencia, Spain 12,000
19 Plaza de toros de Albacete Albacete, Spain 12,000
20 Plaza de toros de la Real Maestranza de Caballería de Sevilla Seville, Spain 12,000
21 Plaza de toros de La Ribera Logroño, Spain 11,046
22 Plaza de toros Calafia Mexicali, Mexico 11,000
23 Plaza de toros de Valladolid Valladolid, Spain 11,000
24 Plaza de toros de Las Palomas Algeciras, Spain 11,000
25 Plaza de toros La Glorieta Salamanca, Spain 10,858
26 Plaza de toros de Jaén Jaén, Spain 10,500
27 Plaza de Toros de Zaragoza Zaragoza, Spain 10,072
28 Plaza de toros de Santander Santander, Spain 10,000
29 Plaza de toros de Palencia Palencia, Spain 10,000
30 Plaza de toros de Almería Almería, Spain 10,000

See also

References

  1. ^ "arenes-nimes.com". Nimes la Romaine.
  2. ^ "Hallan los restos del coso taurino más antiguo de España". El Mundo. Europa Press. 3 April 2003. Retrieved 13 October 2024.
  3. ^ Rodríguez Guillén "Chamizo", Antonio (2013). "La plaza de toros más antigua del mundo, entre Rosal de la Frontera y Aroche". Infonubex (in Spanish). Centro de Investigación: Memoria e Historia de la Sierra. Retrieved 13 October 2024.
  4. ^ "Protegida plaza toros de Campofrío (Huelva), de las más antiguas de España". La Vanguardia (in Spanish). EFE. 5 July 2016. Retrieved 13 October 2024.
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