The Gloves Are Off

Photographer Delilah Montoya spent a year documenting the lives of professional female boxers — including Denver’s own Teri “Lil’ Loca” Cruz — for the book Women Boxers: The New Warriors, portions of which are featured in Su Mirada/Her Gaze, the current exhibition at the Museo de las Américas, 861 Santa...

By Colin Bane

April 21, 2011

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Photographer Delilah Montoya spent a year documenting the lives of professional female boxers — including Denver’s own Teri “Lil’ Loca” Cruz — for the book Women Boxers: The New Warriors, portions of which are featured in Su Mirada/Her Gaze, the current exhibition at the Museo de las Américas, 861 Santa Fe Drive. For tonight’s Momento Interactivo, at 6:30 p.m., Cruz will be on hand to share her story and supplement Montoya’s stark images with a live boxing demonstration.

“When I started this project, the biggest question in my mind was ‘Why do these women want to do this?’” says Montoya. “I got an answer, and it wasn’t the answer I had anticipated. What I found, quite simply: Women boxers box because they have a desire for combat sport, and they go against the grain of so many things in order to participate in it. Their parents don’t want them to do this, the people near and dear to them are horrified by it, but still this desire is there. Teri’s situation was different: Her father was a boxer, her brothers were boxers, and she grew up in it. She’s a mother of three, and when I asked if she’d support her children if they wanted to box, she responded, ‘Yeah, I’ll work their corner.’”

Tonight’s event begins at 6:30 p.m. at the Museo, 861 Santa Fe Drive. For more information, go to www.museo.org. For a longer interview with Delilah Montoya, go to showandtelldenver.com.
Thu., April 21, 6:30-8 p.m., 2011

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