The Queens of Charreria

Samantha Mayorga Castillo, center right, wears the queen´s sombrero during

the gala ceremony and dinner where she was named Queen of La Villa

charreria rodeo club.

Charreria clubs across Mexico select a new ¨queen¨ every year.

Instead of a crown she wears an elegant sombrero, and becomes the club´s social and cultural representative. It´s work and an honor.

This year Samantha Mayorga Castillo is one of the hundreds of horsewomen to take on the job at her local rodeo club, in her case at La Villa in Mexico City.

Like many of Mexico´s women of charreria, she was born into a charro family and has been riding on escaramuza teams since she was 15.

A charra and charro dance in their wheelchairs at the gala where Mayorga

was named queen of La Villa.

Mayorga, a 26-year-old chemical engineer who works in Mexico´s oil industry, says she most wants to promote and support paracharreria : rodeo performed by horsemen and women who are incapacitated in some way.

Below is a short audiovisual from the ceremony where she became queen, in which Mayorga tells us what it means for her.

For English subtitles, after clicking ¨play,¨then click the CC at the bottom right of the youtube window.

Escaramuza: Soul, Life & Heart

One of Mexico City´s first escaramuza fairs of 2014 showcased young riders and teams that had just recently formed. This audiovisual brings you some of the sites and sounds from the event, hosted by the escaramuza team Santa Rosa de Lima at their lienzo Charro del Peñon. A rider explains why she loves her sport so much, and the announcer talks about the women´s soul, life and heart over the speaker system.

The courage and enthusiasm of these young horsewomen was palpable. To close the event, they gathered inside the arena for the awards ceremony, but it was clear to all that the most important thing to them was their love for their charreria sport : Escaramuza.

For English subtitles, after clicking ¨play,¨then click the CC at the bottom right of the youtube window.

Cristina Alvarez Tostado Pena - Fashion designer

Amazona & fashion designer Cristina Alvarez Tostado Peña.

This fashion designer knows her clientele: she's an escaramuza rider herself.

Cristina Alvarez Tostado Peña designs and creates the adelita uniforms for not only her own team, Los Olivos from Guadalajara, Mexico, but for teams across the nation who are part of Mexico's national sport of charreria.

Tostado Peña says she takes after her grandmother who worked in the fashion industry in the U.S., and today runs her own business : Ac Vestidos Disenos

This designer's dresses show great attention to detail, like these layered ruffles.

Cristina Alvarez Tosdado Peña.

Contacts

Email: acvestidos@gmail.com

Facebook: Ac Vestidos Disenos

Celular: 33.1469.3168

Nextel: 92*796131*6

 Guadalajara, Jalisco.
Mexico


To read more about fashion designers, click here.

A rider from her team Los Olivos, from Guadalajara, Mexico, wears a design by Cristina Alvarez Tostado Pena.

Maria Fernanda Perezgrovas Martinez - Photographer

Maria Fernanda Perezgrovas Martinez was riding her horse Benito when contacted by The Art of the Escaramuza for an interview. She said he's her first horse, purchased just half a year ago. That's when she decided it was time to learn to ride, and lucky for her, Benito's previous owner was an escaramuza rider.

The Pachuca native began taking pictures of charreria in 2011 when an ad agency commissioned her to photograph charros for a calender. The client fell through but her photographs were honored by Mazatlan's International Photography Symposium (SIF).

After moving to Mexico City to study communications at the Panamerican University, and later to Florida to experiment with digital photography at the city's Art Institute, she moved back to Pachuca and started her professional photographer career.

Perezgrovas' most exquisite work are what she calls "photo-paintings," like the images of Amazon riders in this post.  Her next solo exhibit, titled "Mexican Charreria Tradition," opens at the end of March at the University Salle in Pachuca.  

For inquiries into the sale of her work, to hire her for a shoot,  or to keep up with her photography, she can be reached at the following contacts: Facebook / mafergrovas@gmail.com / Cell: (+52) 772.736.4184

Adelitas, Past and a Present of a Tradition

Oralia Ceron and Silvia Rojo  in Toluca, Nov. '09.

Have you ever seen a documentary video about the history of Mexican women on horseback?

Charreria researcher Oralia G. de Ceron, passionate to get to the root of things, gives us the film "Las Adelitas Pasado y Presente de una Tradicion," or "Adelitas, Past and a Present of a Tradition."

Finished in 2003, the film features interviews with the people who started the first escaramuza in 1953, including the parents of the six children from the families Camacho Elorriaga and Ruiz Loredo and the "children" themselves as adults.
 
Unfortunately, the film risks getting lost in the past, as it has not been marketed. If you're interested in her film, contact De Ceron directly.

De Ceron is known among escaramuza riders for her annual fashion shows about Mexico's traditional "rebozo," or shawl,  titled: "Rebozo Through Time."

Minerva Sckapole shows a "rebozo" in Toluca, Nov. 2009

The cat walk style shows are a fantastic way to see first hand Mexico's traditional indigenous and colonial clothing used by the women from the nation's various regions. De Ceron organizes the show along with Silvia Garcia de Rojo and Minerva Sckapole every year.

For details on upcoming events, contact De Ceron by email.

Contact for De Ceron

oraliaisabel@hotmail.com

Above is a gallery of photographs from De Ceron's event in 2009. Photos by Leslie Mazoch

Announcing the new blog: The Art of the Escaramuza

Photo by Leslie Mazoch

The Art of the Escaramuza is a blog dedicated to the escaramuza sport, a female discipline within Mexico's national sport of charreria.  

It features the artists, the dressmakers, teams and upcoming escaramuza fairs throughout Mexico and the U.S. with the goal of uniting everyone who loves the sport, from the riders to tourists.  If you belong to an escaramuza team, or know of artists and upcoming events, please tell us.

E-mail 

 lasescaramuzas@gmail.com

Facebook:  

The Art of the Escaramuza / El Arte de la Escaramuza