After an almost seven-hour journey, the bus carrying “The Popeye Bullfighter and his Dwarf Sailors” slowed to a cease across the brick bullfighting ring in Teruel. A brass band, clowns, kids, wives, infants, the corporate’s chief and 7 performers with achondroplasia, a bone development dysfunction that causes the extra widespread kind of dwarfism, spilled out into the solar.

“Teruel,” Jimmy Muñoz, a 57-year-old comedian bullfighter with the situation, stated as he stepped off the bus. “A very difficult place.”

Teruel, in jap Spain, is understood principally for its Islamic Mudejar structure, its star-crossed Medieval lovers and a inhabitants density so low it spawned a political social gathering known as Teruel Exists.

But Mr. Muñoz was referring to the city’s new standing on the entrance line of a tradition battle with political overlays between Spain’s conservative defenders of bullfighting traditions and liberals who discover them brutal, retrograde and, within the case of comedian bullfighting reveals during which a few of the performers with achondroplasia tackle smaller 1-year-old bulls, unlawful.

For its annual fiesta this July, Teruel — which traces its founding to Christian troopers repelling a Muslim assault of bulls with their horns on hearth and particularly one which survived to take a siesta — has rejected a May legislation handed by the Spanish Parliament that appeared to ban comedian bullfights. The legislation banned “shows or leisure activities” that use a incapacity “to provoke public mockery, ridicule or derision.”

“These shows ridicule, humiliate, mock and denigrate people,” stated Felipe Orviz Orviz, 43, a lawyer and activist who additionally has achondroplasia.

As the Popeye bus wound its means towards Teruel, the lawyer threatened authorized motion if the present went on and recounted how folks have mistaken him for a performer and shouted “look at the dwarf bullfighter” at him throughout fiestas. The reveals, he stated, “are illegal.”

But defenders of the present cited one other clause of the legislation, which states that “people with disabilities will participate in public shows and recreational activities, including bullfighting, without discrimination.”

Benito Ros, an official with the Aragon area who is predicated in Teruel, argued that the comedian bullfighters had been getting laughs for his or her antics, not their stature, and that to ban them was to discriminate in opposition to their proper to work.

“Our legal experts say it can go ahead because they are not provoking mockery,” Mr. Ros stated. “I have a clean conscience.”

At 12:22 p.m. on the day of the present, his workplace despatched the occasion’s organizer, David Gracia, 47, closing authorization as he checked on the bulls fuming within the stalls. “We are defending freedom. They are trying to turn this country into a moral dictatorship,” Mr. Gracia stated. “I have goose bumps talking about this.”

A couple of minutes later, the bus arrived.

“Let’s go, little ones,” barked Juan Ajenjo — Popeye, who doesn’t have achondroplasia — utilizing the time period the performers additionally used to explain each other. In the enterprise for 42 years, he had seen the variety of reveals crater within the final 15. “It’s not good,” he stated of the brand new legislation. “The politicians don’t want the little ones to work.”

But work they did. Amid all of the backwards and forwards between activists, legal professionals and politicians, the performers — a number of of whom confront actual bulls throughout the present — stated they wanted the cash, incomes between 150 and 400 euros a day. Unlike their gigs as waiters or as leisure in discos, this was a efficiency they took delight in, a number of of them stated. And they needed to get on with the present.

“We are artists and this is our dream,” stated Mr. Muñoz, a married father of two, who got here to Spain from Ecuador 30 years in the past. “This is the right to work, they can’t take it away from us,” he stated. “There is a family that eats behind this.”

The troop hit the streets handy out stacks of fliers, which, just like the entrance web page of that day’s Diario de Teruel, marketed them as “dwarf sailors.” A band taking part in trombones and tubas adopted behind.

“We’re not OK with the bullfighting” stated Mariano Mateo, 66, a retired psychology professor, who received a flier. “And this is even worse.”

The performers crossed a bridge and entered the primary Plaza del Torico, the place the night earlier than, native kids ran away from wheelbarrows fitted with bull heads and horns, and now lots of waited in line to ascend on a crane to the highest of the town’s trademark column, topped by a small brass bull carrying a crimson fiesta scarf.

The band performed and the performers danced on the foot of the column, and Ezequiel Gonzalez, 67, clapped alongside together with his grandchildren.

The present was “fun and educational,” he stated, including, “the children asked if they’re real,” referring to the performers.

About half an hour later, a few of the performers took a breather within the shade. One slipped away for a day in town, and others accepted the native delicacy of bread, ham and crimson peppers that the mayor handed out to lots of to have fun the fiesta.

“After speaking with the artists,” the mayor, Emma Buj, stated, it was clear they “consider themselves to be bullfighters.”

The performers left the sq., grumbling about not having had time to essentially eat lunch, and returned to the bullring’s dressing room, a transformed veterinarian area that smelled of sawdust and was cluttered with racks of uniforms, luggage of wigs, circumstances full of spiritual icons, plastic trumpets and clown outfits.

“Let’s get out there,” shouted Mr. Ajenjo, 69, stripped right down to a pair of flip flops, sun shades and blue shorts bunched as much as his groin. The Spanish flag was tattooed on his left calf, the silhouette of a bull on his proper.

The performers stripped off their official Popeye firm inexperienced shirts, put out their cigarettes and went again to work.

In the center of the sector, underneath a punishing solar, Mr. Ajenjo blew his whistle furiously and the performers entered the ring in single file for rehearsal because the band performed “Brazil.” Mr. Muñoz shook maracas; Anderson Torres Perez, 32, performed the bongos; Patricia Rotundo, 40, rattled a tambourine. Mr. Ajenjo threw his arms up in disgust when he realized one performer hadn’t returned from city.

“Always the same guy,” he stated. “I’m fed up with him.”

They labored out the gags, with Mr. Muñoz pretending to be a toreador to Mr. Torres Perez’s bull. For one other routine, they acted like cadets to Mr. Ajenjo’s captain, who yelled at them for spinning the mistaken means.

“This is the worst show I’ve ever put on,” he screamed as his former spouse regarded on.

“Ex,” she clarified. “Ex.”

At almost 3 p.m., underneath a shaded tunnel, it was time for a break. The performers, a number of of them second-generation comedian bullfighters who labored beforehand of their native South America, handed across the smiling child of the clown who fought a bull on stilts. They ribbed each other and applauded one different’s routines.

Ramon Moya, 46, a former bullfighter within the firm, watched them with admiration.

“It’s even more dangerous for them,” he stated, “because the bulls are taller than they are.”

As showtime approached, Fabio Pabon, 40, the lacking performer, returned. (“I had to get out and disconnect for a while,” he stated)..

The shady half of the bull ring started to refill with households. Spectators drank beer and spit sunflower seeds.

Mr. Muñoz emerged in matching blue-sequined sombrero, vest and bow tie. “We don’t want charity,” he stated, “we want to work.”

The present began. Mr. Muñoz and Mr. Torres Perez carried out their toreador and bull pantomime, as two different males entered the ring in a bull swimsuit.

Then an actual bull entered — younger however nonetheless of intimidating measurement. It stared on the spectacle in entrance of it and virtually instantly jumped the fence. After a second of panic, organizers received it again contained in the ring, and Mr. Ajenjo, Mr. Muñoz and Mr. Torres Perez fought it with prospers of capes, umbrellas and a painted train ball. Mr. Pabon, stuffed with braveness, punched it with boxing gloves and misplaced a shoe.

“I’m going to say something important,” Mr. Ajenjo, out of breath, stated into the microphone after the bull exited. Pointing to his firm, he stated they had been masters of their commerce and concluded: “The current politicians want to take their rights away. Muchas Gracias.”

Raul Saura, 40, a slaughter home employee sitting within the stands, stated, “I laugh with them,” as his 2-year-old daughter giggled on the present.

At the top, the performers appeared in the sector in pink-striped sailor shirts, and Mr. Ajenjo, in a blue Popeye sailor swimsuit, confronted a ferocious younger black bull. The crowd roared on the shut calls, particularly when Mr. Ajenjo did circles across the bull on a motorcycle.

But then he received gored within the leg and was rushed to the infirmary. As his ex-wife bit her painted pink nails, the corporate took a laudatory lap. The sailors waved their sailor hats. The clowns carried their kids on their shoulders.

Back within the dressing room, the performers applauded when Mr. Ajenjo hobbled again to affix them with a bandaged thigh.

“They’re artists,” he stated with emotion. “Like bullfighters or porn actors, it’s the same.”

Everyone modified and packed up. In the sector, the youngsters who had waited impatiently descended into the ring for the primary occasion — testing their mettle and dodging younger bulls. Backstage, staff killed the primary bull the corporate had fought. The staff dragged its carcass throughout the courtyard to a slaughterhouse because the performers rolled their suitcases towards the exit.

“We came with fear,” stated Mr. Muñoz, as he boarded the bus for the lengthy trip again to Madrid, “that they weren’t going to let us perform.”

Rachel Chaundler contributed reporting.