Advertisement
Advertisement

Family circus carries on 46-year tradition

Circus Vargas debuts new show in Del Mar Thursday

Share

Ladies and gentlemen, and little kids too, can soon step right up for a front-row seat to one of the few remaining family-owned touring circuses in America. Tonight, Circus Vargas will launch its 46th touring season under a star-sprinkled blue big top tent at the Del Mar Fairgrounds.

The new glow-in-the-dark show “iLUMINOUS” — which continues through April 4 at four San Diego-area locations — features 18 new acts and a word-free story encouraging families to unplug their electronic devices and reconnect with their families. The storyline is a natural for the Circus Vargas troupe, an extended clan of tight-knit families with circus roots stretching back hundreds of years.

View the photo gallery: Circus Vargas 2016

For the next 10 months, the 100-member troupe will perform 400 shows in 35 cities across the country. Besides the 30 international performers and the 50-plus company of managers, designers, tent-raisers, concessionaires and staff, the troupe includes 16 children ages 8 to 18, who travel with a full-time schoolteacher.

It’s the only life most of the troupe has ever known.

Circus Vargas has been co-owned for the past 10 years by Nelson and Katya Quiroga. The couple met in 1989 when the circus’ founder, Clifford Vargas, hired each of them to perform in his trapeze act, long known as the Flying Tabares.

Katya, a 46-year-old native of Holland, traces her family’s circus heritage back seven generations, mostly in Europe. Her father was a wire-walker and her mother a juggling acrobat. Nelson grew up in Argentina, where his family’s circus roots go back five generations.

Circus Vargas: iLUMINOUS

When: Feb. 11-21 at Del Mar Fairgrounds, 2260 Jimmy Durante Blvd., Del Mar; Feb. 25-March 7 at Mission Bay Park, 1101 Sea World Drive, San Diego; March 10-27 at Westfield Plaza Bonita, 3030 Plaza Bonita Road, National City; March 30-April 4, Vista Village Drive at Highway 78, Vista.

Tickets: $35-$70, reserved; $15-$35, general admission

Phone: (877) 468-3861

Online: circusvargas.com

The Quirogas have both retired from the trapeze to focus on management, but their three daughters are all in training. Eldest daughter, Mariella, 18, recently became a junior member of the Flying Tabares. The Quirogas’ brothers, sisters, cousins, nephews and nieces are all in the mix, working as performers and technical crew. The show’s biggest star — 21-year-old magician, trampoline artist and straps performer Patrick Marinelli — is Katya’s cousin from the Italian side of her family.

While the touring circus life is not for everyone, it can become addictive. Performers whose bodies wear out, usually around the age of 40, often stay to sell tickets or work as tent-raisers. One of them is Richard “Bumpy” Padilla Jr., who said he’s been traveling with the circus off and on since 1991.

After he got out of the Marine Corps, Padilla said he worked as a corrections officer. Then one day he saw a Circus Vargas tent going up near his home and he asked the laborers if they needed any help. Vargas squeezed Padilla’s bicep to determine how strong he was and then pointed him in the direction of the tent.

Except for a few years when Circus Vargas shut down in 2004 and 2005, he’s been traveling as a jack-of-all-trades with the show ever since.

It takes a little over a day for the 30-member work crew to erect the 26,000-square-foot blue tent and its 1,500 gallery seats, which surround a ground-level ring stage. The troupe usually performs 10-12 shows in each location before pulling up stakes and moving to the next town in a caravan of tractor-trailers. Del Mar is the first of four stops in San Diego County, including Mission Bay, National City and Vista.

The tours always begins in San Diego because it’s in the geographic corner of the continental U.S. and because of its mild winter weather. After 10 months on the road, troupe members rest at their “winter” homes in Las Vegas or Florida. Circus Vargas does not have any animal acts.

Because the circus visits each of the cities on its tour once a year, it’s important to present an all-new show each year. This year, Katya said, 90 percent of the acts are new, with acrobats, daredevils, dancers and tumblers from the Ukraine, Brazil, Italy, Holland, Brazil, Colombia and Argentina.

The lineup features Yeronmenko, a gymastic team that performs on the horizontal bars; the Skating Torreblancas, a husband-and-wife team who do daring stunts on roller skates; and the Globe of Death, where the Dominguez brothers ride motorcycles around inside a steel mesh sphere.

Every circus has its own style and reputation. Some are known for their lighting and music, some for their “freak shows,” some for their humor and some for their costumes. Katya said Circus Vargas is known for its family-friendly environment.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re 2 years old or 99 years old, you’re going to be entertained in a wholesome way,” she said. “It doesn’t matter what your culture, religion or language is, you will be entertained and you’ll walk away feeling as if you gained something.”

Advertisement