The Day She became the First Woman Bullfighter on Horseback in France – Part 1

05 Jan 2009 7 Comments

by Miki in Art, Bullfight, Corrida, Culture, Spain, Tradition, travel Tags: acrylics, acuarela, Alvaro Domecq, aquarelle, bullfight art, bullfight paintings, bullfighter portraits, bullfighting art, Camargue, fantasy bullfight art, Marie Sara, Miki, painting, Paintings, pintura corrida, pinturas taurinas, rejoneador, Spanish bullfight, tauromachie, toros, watercolour

(Joel D.,  friend and  author here in Amour Toro, gave me the links to a temoignage written by Marie Sara, the first woman bullfighter on horseback in France. I am so impressed and fascinated by this story that I feel the need to translate it from French, to give as many people as possible the possibility to read it. The basic message has in fact nothing to do with bulls and bullfights. It is simply  a great lesson of courage and will, and the proof how dreams can become reality if we really want it. This is why I believe that it is a very important message for everybody!)

Original text by Marie Sara in French here

The Day when I became the First Woman Bullfighter on Horseback in France   – Part 1

I was born in Paris into a family of artists and intellectuals, my parents being actors and film directors. Needless to say then that nothing predisposed me to the life which would become mine.

As I was a child, we spent our holidays in the Camargue. Very quickly I fell in love with the South, the sun, the southerly way of life and culture. As I was 14, my parents took me for the first time to a bullfight on horseback in Méjanes, Camargue. This was for me a shock, a true revelation. I loved everything there, I was touched and amazed by the magnificent show I was attending. That day my passion and my vocation were born.

A passion which my parents had the intelligence and sensitivity to let me live: perhaps they thought that I was rebelling against what they were? Perhaps they thought that it would go away? I don’t know. What I know is that not only did they not stop me in any way but on the contrary always encouraged me to live my dreams. I want  to honour them for this here.

At that time -the late 70′s- only one woman had practised bullfight on horseback so far. And what a woman! Conchita Cintron – for it is her of whom I speak – was a legend, a legend  in the 50′s. They called her “The Blond Goddess”. She became an example for me.

As we went back to Paris, I  read, saw, heard everything. Yes, I  devoured everything related to this subject.

Then one day, my parents took me to the big Feria of Seville, one of the most prestigious arenas of the world. With us, a family friend, the well-known writer Jean Lacouture, aficionado (bullfight lover) himself and author of famous texts in Le Monde.

Jean Lacouture would take me under his wing and help me to meet the right people, the ones who would help me to enter this closed masculine world .

Thanks to him, I would, in particular, meet Simon Casas. I am 15 years old, he is twice as old. He is a French bullfighter, he knows many people in the profession. I tell him “I want to become a torero”. Simon and me will love each other and spend many years together. Thanks to him I will continue learning my profession.

At the age of 16 I decide to stop my studies and to leave Paris. As I said  before, my parents support me, they don’t impede me to go and even encourage me to live my passion.

I go and live in the South with Simon. We live poorly, it is not always easy, but I am happy with the man I love and in a daily life which makes me flourish  infinitely more than the Parisian school….

At that time Simon Casas starts a career as an impresario.

His address book becomes bigger and bigger with time passing by, a book which he will open to help me. This is how I went to Andalucia to a very big Bull  breeder, the “main man ” at this time: Alvaro Domecq….

(Next instalment on Sunday 11th of January 2009)

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