Fighting Cholitas

Fighting Cholitas
Cholitas fight it out in the arena (February 2014)
Directed by	Mariam Jobrani
Produced by	Mariam Jobrani Teresa Deskins Kenny Krauss
Running time	20 minutes
Country	Bolivia

TheFighting Cholitasare a group of femalewrestlerswho perform inEl Alto, Bolivia.The Cholitas are part of a group called theTitans of the Ring,which includes both male and female wrestlers. The Titans perform each Sunday for an audience of hundreds at El Alto's Multifunctional Center. Tickets to the exhibitions cost $1.

The idea of including female wrestlers as a maneuver for publicity came from Juan Mamami, a wrestler and president of the Titans. They routinely attract over a thousand spectators to their bouts in El Alto and several hundred spectators when they travel with the Titans to smaller towns.

Like the general population of El Alto, which consists almost entirely ofAymaraandQuechuaresidents, the Cholitas areindigenous.They wear braided hair,bowler hatsand multilayered skirts in the ring.

According to a 2005New York Timesarticle, the Titans earn about $13 for each bout. Most of the wrestlers have other jobs besides their wrestling careers.

Media

The Cholitas were the subject of an award-winning 2006 short-subject documentary,The Fighting Cholitas.The twenty-minute documentary was directed byMariam Jobraniand produced by Jobrani,Teresa DeskinsandKenny Krauss.The film received an honorable mention in Short Filmmaking at the 2007Sundance Film Festival.

In October 2008, the Fighting Cholitas were featured in the third episode ofthirteenth seasonof the American reality seriesThe Amazing Race,in which a contestant from each team was tasked with learning and performing a six-step wrestling routine with a Cholita.

External links

• Media related toFighting Cholitasat Wikimedia Commons