The Brooklyn Rail, Winter 2003

The East Coast Circuit

The pinnacle of the rodeo is the bull ride. In this event, the gonads of a two thousand pound animal have been cinched tightly. Then a cowboy climbs on and through the thrashing, tries to stay astraddle for the full eight seconds. Rodeos give us a connection to a time of transition, when settlers pushed west, cowboys drove cattle east, and a new, profound history was being scrawled onto the landscape. America's oldest sport, cowboys still travel the rodeo circuit in hopes of winning the silver buckle, risking their lives riding and roping livestock bred to never be tamed.

In 1998, Sandra Nydegger, a photographer originally from Switzerland, began shooting rodeos. Living in New York City, she wanted to see the "other" America, the one reminiscent of old Westerns she had watched as a child. The adrenaline rushes from the violence and excitement of the rodeo became addicting, and she didn't have to travel far to find them.

Thirty-six rodeos are held along the east coast each year; the oldest, Cowtown, in New Jersey, is the longest running rodeo in the country. East Coast rodeos seem anachronistic: lights of roller coasters from Wildwood blink in the background of rodeos in New Jersey. Quaker families in Pennsylvania warmly welcome these events. In Vermont, rodeos set up at ski resorts in the off-season. In The Bronx, dust gets kicked up amidst the most urban setting in the country. Black cowboy associations hold rodeos on the Brooklyn/ Queens border. Warren Small, a cowboy with the Federation of Black Cowboys located in Howard Beach, takes advantage of these events not only to ride, but to educate as well.

"What many people don't know," Mr. Small said. "Is that three out of every five cowboys were black. We were not just the labor force in this country. We were, and still are, freedom fighters."

A lot about the rodeo is still unknown by the population at large. Nydegger's East Coast Circuit project shows the rodeo being held in unexpected places, and these photographs tell a new story, one not of glory, but of the primal undercurrent that connects humans to other animals. She uses a low-tech camera that has no zoom lens, so every shot is seen at the distance of the naked eye, and this forces her to get as close to the arena and bullpen as possible. The pictures are all taken by natural light with black and white film, so there is no sensation from color or flash, merely tension and nuance. In the blur of an action shot, animals and riders become symbols, a brief, frenzied battle between those trying to dominate, and the force of resistance. When we see the horses and bulls without the riders, they are no longer symbols, but real creatures that teeter between the domesticated and the wild. The rodeo evoked in these images opens up glimpses from the time when cowboys experienced the awe of the vast American wilderness. Then set out to tame it.