Photos show a bullfight in Kenya, where an ancient sport attracts modern-day bets

KAKAMEGA, Kenya (AP) — The bullfighting tradition is deeply rooted among the Luhya community in Kenya’s Kakamega County. It started as entertainment and a form of celebration after harvests, and has evolved into a sport that attracts thousands of young people who place bets on the bulls.

On Nov. 29, two bulls were brought to face off in an arena as locals cheered them on.

A newcomer bull named Shakahola faced off against Promise, a longtime favorite who only lost a few matches in over 10 years.

They locked horns and tore up the ground. Dust swirled around them, clouding the view for those close to the action.

In about three minutes, the match was over. It was a win for Shakahola and the crowd erupted in song and dance as Promise ran out of the arena bearing blood marks on his hide.

This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.

A spectator dances and sings after bull Shakahola won bullfighting match, in Kakamega, Kenya, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

A crowd of spectators, holding a dead bird on a pole, dances and sings after bull Shakahola won bullfighting match, in Kakamega, Kenya, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

A crowd of spectators encircles fighting bulls Shakahola and Promise as they lock horns at a bullfight, in Kakamega, Kenya, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

A spectator covered in dust dances after bull Shakahola won bullfighting match, in Kakamega, Kenya, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

A crowd of spectators dances and sings after bull Shakahola won bullfighting match, in Kakamega, Kenya, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

Fighting bulls Shakahola and Promise lock horns at a bullfight, in Kakamega, Kenya, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

A crowd of spectators encircles a fighting bull during a bullfight in Kakamega, Kenya, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

A crowd of spectators encircles fighting bulls Shakahola and Promise as they lock horns at a bullfight, in Kakamega, Kenya, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

Promise, the bull, runs away after being defeated by Shakahola at a bullfight, in Kakamega, Kenya, on Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

A spectator dances and sings after bull Shakahola won bullfighting match, in Kakamega, Kenya, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

Spectators attend a bullfighting match, in Kakamega, Kenya, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

Spectators escort a truck where a bull is loaded, waving their chasing sticks and ululating, on the way to a bullfight in Kakamega, Kenya, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

A crowd of spectators dances and sings "Isukuti," a traditional dance accompanied by a set of three drums, after bull Shakahola won bullfighting match, in Kakamega, Kenya, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

A crowd of spectators escorts bull Shakahola, a reference to a the 2023 Kenya cult in which more than 400 people died, to a bullfight in Kakamega, Kenya, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

NEW YORK (AP) — Christine Baranski was in the playground outside St. Matthew’s Church in Bedford, New York, about three years ago when she came across Matthew Guard, artistic director of the Grammy-nominated Skylark Vocal Ensemble.

“I love choral music,” she told him.

An Emmy- and Tony-Award winning actor, Baranski went on to attend some of his concerts.

“I was a fangirl basically,” she recalled. “And I think we just said, `Wouldn’t it be fun to do something together?’”

Baranski agreed to narrate a music-and-spoken word version of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” last December at The Morgan Library & Museum in New York, which owns the original manuscript of the 1843 classic. A recording was made last June at the Church of the Redeemer in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, and released Dec. 4 on the LSO Live label.

She will perform it again with the group on Thursday night at the Morgan, which is displaying the manuscript through Jan. 11, and again the following night at The Breakers in Newport, Rhode Island, where she will again portray the acerbic Agnes van Rhijn when Season 4 of HBO’s “The Gilded Age” starts filming season four on Feb. 23.

“I have this thing about keeping language alive, keeping beautiful, well-written language,” she said. “Dickens, Stoppard, Shakespeare. We’re getting awfully lazy in our use of the English language.”

She compliments Julian Fellowes, creator of “The Gilded Age” and “Downton Abbey,” for distinguished prose.

“I think he’d play Agnes if he could,” she said. “He gives her the witty stuff.”

Baranski leaned on the skills that earned her an Emmy for “Cybill” and Tonys for “The Real Thing” and “Rumors.”

“You get to bring to life a lot of different characters, none the least of which is Ebenezer,” she said at the library this month. “It’s wonderful for an actor to differentiate in as subtle a way as possible these different characters. As an acting piece, it’s wonderful. And not many women have done it. It’s been done by Alistair Cooke and Patrick Stewart and Patrick Page and all these great actors — but I get to do it with a chorus.”

Guard weaves in underscoring by composer Benedict Sheehan with Baranski’s words and 10 carols that include “Silent Night” and “Deck the Halls” plus “Auld Lang Syne.”

Reciting the entire story would have created a Wagnerian-length evening.

“This manuscript itself is about 30,000 words and we needed about 5,000 to make it a concert length,” Guard said. “I tried to create space in the narrative for obvious musical exclamation points or emotional feelings, almost like arias in an opera.”

Sheehan had worked together with Guard on a 2020 recording “Once Upon a Time” that weaved together the Brothers Grimm’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” and Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid.”

“I said why don’t you commission me to write choral underscoring for the narrative that can kind of stitch together these different choral pieces?” Sheehan said.

Baranski got narration experience in 2023 when she replaced Liev Schreiber with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall for Beethoven’s “Egmont.”

“I could do this the rest of my career,” she thought at the time. “Just put me in a concert hall surrounded by great musicians.”

After working with dialect coach Howard Samuelsohn, Baranski practiced on Zoom to hone a 19th-century voice and avoid cliché.

“I said this is a good warm up for Aunt Agnes because it’s that kind of speech we were taught at Juilliard,” the 73-year-old Baranski said, recalling lessons from Edith Skinner decades ago.

“Sometimes it’s just a question of modulating your voice, just different rhythms and staccato or legato,” she said. “I want the voice of the Ghost of Christmas past to be disembodied… ethereal.”

She didn’t have an urge to join in on the carols.

“We take from each other,” she said. “When the chorus first heard my version of it, I think it subtly influenced the feeling of it and I take from the mood of the carol and bring it into my interpretation.”

“It’s a really exciting back-and-forth actually,” Guard said. “It’s not really totally clear who’s driving the bus at times.”

Baranski hopes the project has a future.

“We want to film this someday in the Morgan,” she said. “Make this a yearly event at the Morgan, because here’s the manuscript and people. It’s just one of those things like Handel’s `Messiah’ or `The Nutcracker.’”

She’s going to gift the CD to her grandchildren, four boys ranging from ages 2 to 12. Among her previous holiday experiences was portraying Martha May Whovier in the 2000 movie “Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”

“They’re curiously not interested in my even being Martha May in `The Grinch,’” Baranski explained. “Their friends sometimes say: `That’s your grandmother.’ But I just want to be their grandma — do you know what I mean — and not somebody?”

Skylark Artistic Director Matthew Guard and Christine Baranski are interviewed beside "A Christmas Carol In Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas" by Charles Dickens, Dec. 1843," at The Morgan Library & Museum, in New York, Monday, Dec. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Skylark Artistic Director Matthew Guard and Christine Baranski are interviewed beside "A Christmas Carol In Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas" by Charles Dickens, Dec. 1843," at The Morgan Library & Museum, in New York, Monday, Dec. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Skylark Artistic Director Matthew Guard and Christine Baranski are interviewed beside "A Christmas Carol In Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas" by Charles Dickens, Dec. 1843," at The Morgan Library & Museum, in New York, Monday, Dec. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)