16-05-2025
More Torremolinos than torero? My lesson in the art of bullfighting
With a brisk shake of the muleta and a cry of challenge the bull is invited to charge. Its sharp horns advance before, in a swish of red cloth and bravado, the beast passes by my right side.
It seems fitting to forgo the matador's haughty toss of the head. After all, we are not standing on the forbidding sand of Madrid's Las Ventas bullring. We are on the lush grass of the city's Retiro Park in the shade of horse chestnut trees. And the bull? That role is being played today by Silvina Mañanes, a professional tango dancer from Argentina.
'You showed great potential,' she says. The ripple of laughter that emanated from my fellow students in the art of bullfighting suggests otherwise. There
