Lucha Canaria – Sport and Identity in the Canary Island
Today, the traditional “Lucha Canaria” or Canarian Wrestling is both a modern sport and a significant marker of cultural identity in the Canary Islands of Spain (situated off the coast of Africa). This sport and its relevance for the people’s identity as Canarios and inhabitants of their different islands and regions is shown in this documentary shot on Tenerife, Gran Canaria and La Palma. We encounter forms of contemporary wrestling through two male and one female protagonist, and we are informed about the history of “La Lucha”by the local expert and poet Borito. The film culminates in the big wrestling event held annually on the 30th of May, the “Dia de Canarias”.
Directors
Rolf Husmann
Rolf Husmann is a producer of ethnographic films at IWF knowledge and Media Gottingen. His special fields of interest are visual anthropology and the anthropology of sport. Periods of fieldwork were spent in the Sudan, the Canary Islands, and Samoa islands, mostly in connection with the production of ethnographic films. He is currently the chairman of the Commission of Visual Anthropology (CVA) of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (ICAES). He also teaches at times at Gottingen, Mainz and Malta University.
Lucha Canaria: Sport and Identity in the Canary Islands (1999)、Destination Samoa (1997)、Maire Nui Vaka (1994)、Firth on Firth (1992)、Nuba Wrestling (1991)