For Matadora, Bullfighting Is Her 'Absolute Truth'

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Lupita Lopez tests a cow at the Santa Maria Bull Ring. Before becoming a full matador, toreros often fight young bulls or test female cows for courage.

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Last Sunday, a 32-year-old bullfighter named Lupita Lopez appeared in Mexico City's Plaza Mexico(墨西哥城斗牛場), the largest bullring?in the world. She was inducted into(引導(dǎo)，帶領(lǐng)) the tiny sorority(婦女聯(lián)誼會) of matadoras(女斗牛士)?, professional female bullfighters. For Lopez, bullfighting is all she's ever known and all she's ever wanted to do.
NPR's John Burnett caught up with her last month at a bullring in south Texas.

(Soundbite of music)

JOHN BURNETT: Deep in the thorn brush(荊棘叢) country north of McAllen(麥卡倫，德州南部城市), there's a bull ranch called La Querencia. The owner is a burly 74-year-old former amateur bullfighter who swaggers about(自吹自擂) ?and wears his guayabera(拉丁美洲等地流行男式襯衫) shirt open at the top, macho style(形容很大男子氣).

Mr. FRED RENK (Owner, La Querencia): (Unintelligible).

BURNETT: In the afternoons, you can find him here in his cantina listening to Spanish guitars, enjoying a beer buzz and talking up Mexico's hottest new lady bullfighter - Lupita Lopez.

Mr. RENK: She's going to be great. She's got this quality and this desire to burn and create art. You'll see it tomorrow.

BURNETT: Fred Renk is her patron(資助人) in the style of benefactors who help aspiring boxers and opera singers to get a start. He and his friends put up $10,000 for her sword, cape and intricately embroidered(帶有精細(xì)復(fù)雜刺繡圖案的) suit.

Mr. RENK: We just took her on, and we helped her. She fights, and she fights well.

BURNETT: And she draws. On this weekend, he has promoted her appearance here at his bullring as the Mayan Princess.

Ms. LUPITA LOPEZ (Bullfighter): (Foreign language spoken)

BURNETT: Lopez sits on a sofa in a guesthouse. She's striking, with a cascade of dark hair, a fighter's arms, a dancer's body and disarming eyes.
She will not talk of animal cruelty. Bullfighting is a medieval entertainment , but it remains a cultural fixture in some Latin American and European countries as it is in her own family.

Ms. LOPEZ: (Through Translator) I come from a family of bullfighters, from my great-grandfather, grandfather, father, uncle and cousins. And so coming from this family, obviously from the moment we wake up until we go to sleep, we talk about bulls.

BURNETT: Growing up on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico(尤卡坦半島), Lopez decided she wanted to be a bullfighter when she was 11. During her long apprenticeship (學(xué)徒，訓(xùn)練期)?, she faced the challenges of a young woman entering the quintessentially(本質(zhì)地，典型地) male domain of bulls.

Ms. LOPEZ: (Through Translator) When I'm traveling alone, there are men who think that a female bullfighter is an easy woman and promoters who think, because they put me on a bill, that I have to sleep with them. I really think being a woman is an obstacle.

BURNETT: Her gender cuts both ways. Some impresarios(經(jīng)理人，主辦方) won't allow her to fight in their plazas, but others actively promote female bullfighters as a novelty and pay them more.
Lopez is married to an Italian filmmaker who tolerates - but doesn't support - her bullfighting career. She's been?gored?three times, once seriously in the groin. At 32, she figures she has three or four years left in her career. She'd like to have children.
Why does she do it?

Ms. LOPEZ: (Foreign language spoken)

BURNETT: In the duration of a bullfight, she says, these are 20 minutes of absolute truth.
On the weekend we visited Fred Renk's ranch, she will not conclude the fight by killing the toro bravo(小牛), the brave bull, with a sword, as is customary(習(xí)慣上的). It's against the law. She'll be fighting and testing vacas bravas(這里指牛), brave cows, to see if they have thevalor(勇氣) to be returned to the pasture and bred with a fighting bull.

(Soundbite of whistling)

BURNETT: Ranch hands goad(驅(qū)趕，刺激) the skittish(激動的) heifers(小母牛) into achute(牲畜通道，柵欄), where David Renk, Fred's son and a former matador himself, leans down and glues a plastic flower onto their black?hides.

Mr. DAVID RENK: You know, they have to go and take this off from the back of those animals to simulate the kill of the bull.

BURNETT: The stands fill up with tourists in caps and sunglasses, most of whom know nothing of the precision and danger of what they're about to witness.

Unidentified Man: We're waiting on Lupita Lopez, you guys, and...

BURNETT: Finally, she strides into the bullring in her blue and gold suit, a long braid falling down her back.
Lopez fights the animals in the classic style: with feet planted, back arched, caping to the right,haughty(神氣活現(xiàn)的) and graceful.
The spirited young cows charge and jab with their sharp horns, just like their brothers.

Ms. LOPEZ: (Foreign language spoken)

(Soundbite of cheering)

Unidentified Man: (Unintelligible).

BURNETT: That was a month ago.
Up until this point, she had been allowed only to fight young bulls. Last Sunday, in the Plaza Mexico, Lupita Lopez graduated. She confronted mature bulls that weigh a thousand pounds each.
Now, she can be called matadora de toros. She becomes one of four professional female bullfighters that are active in the world.

John Burnett, NPR News.?

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