Circo Barrio! : One-Ring Family Circus Finds Loyal Following for Performances in Spanish

Alicia Farfan stood behind a popcorn machine, selling each bag with a smile, greeting patrons in Spanish.

Ten minutes later, she hung by one foot from a rope, twirling her daughter by means of a harness around both their necks.

Bienvenidos todos al Circo D’Carlo! Welcome, everyone, to the Circus D’Carlo!

Although there are no lion tamers or dancing elephants, this one-ring, low-budget circus, where the star performer sells popcorn to her own show, is capitalizing on an audience-grabbing attraction--it is performed in Spanish.

Circus D’Carlo has been called the “barrio circus.” The owners of the show, representing the sixth generation in a trapeze family, have found a niche in the slick, multimillion-dollar circus world by setting up their big top in the heart of low-income and working-class Latino neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles and Orange counties.

“It may not be the greatest show on earth, but we’re pretty good,” said owner Carlos Farfan last week in San Fernando.

City officials and community leaders from Santa Ana to South Gate have bent the rules to accommodate the small-time circus.

Last week, the San Fernando City Council unanimously voted to accept $3,000 worth of tickets for distribution to senior citizens in lieu of cash for the city’s business permit fees.

“I was committed to bringing them to the city and didn’t want internal bureaucracy to hold back something so wholesome,” said Mayor Jess Margarito. “The people who attend this circus don’t have the means to go to the Forum or sports arena to attend a big show.”

In South Gate, the city’s director of parks and recreation saw to it that permits were speedily obtained.

“We were willing to help them out because other than on Cinco de Mayo, we really don’t do a whole lot of events for Hispanics in our city,” said George Price, parks director. “They are really a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants operation--an old-time type of circus that travels from town to town.”

For $8 a ticket and free admission for children, “it’s better than a movie,” said Leopoldo Yanez, whose family’s eyes were fixed on a tightrope walker at a recent afternoon performance. “The children think it’s a big party.”

Many of the patrons had walked to the show, lured by the vibrant-colored posters that appeared around the city days before the circus opened. But another woman had traveled 35 miles from Cudahy with her four children to see the show.

“The jokes, well, they just seem funnier in Spanish,” said Maria Guerrero.

Indeed, the payasos, clowns, who tell silly jokes and try to teach a zebra clown to dance, draw the most applause and smiles.

The Circus D’Carlo is the only circus in the United States that performs its show in Spanish and is one of about 30 small and medium-sized circuses nationwide, according to Robert Parkinson, director of research at the Circus World Museum, in Baraboo, Wis.

The circus is distinctive, Parkinson said, because it doesn’t use performing animals--not even hoop-jumping dogs. Its show follows more in the tradition of European-style circuses--heavy on clown routines, dancers, gymnasts and daring acrobatic acts.

“Americans might liken the Circus D’Carlo to a vaudeville show,” Parkinson said.

Carlos Farfan, 42, is a handsome man who speaks five languages. For five generations, his family was known as the “Flying Farfans” and performed with trapeze acts throughout the world.

Farfan performed as a trapeze catcher, but he also built circus equipment, tents and wild-animal cages. All the while, he built equipment for what he hoped would be his own circus. He based his business in Las Vegas.

In the 1970s he was a partner in a circus called Las Vegas International that performed mostly in South America and Mexico. Farfan’s break in United States circuses came in the early 1980s.

Farfan was in Italy learning how to make circus tents when representatives from the World’s Fair in New Orleans hired him to put on a show in the U.S. pavilion. Buoyed from the World’s Fair exposure, Farfan returned to Las Vegas, gathered up his resources and equipment and opened Circus D’Carlo.

By catering to the Spanish-speaking community, Circus D’Carlo wouldn’t have to compete with larger circuses. Anglo audiences in the United States, Farfan reasoned, are used to buying advance tickets for the circus and usually attend slick indoor circus shows. “To reach that audience, I would have to spend $5,000 a day on advertising. I don’t have that kind of money.”

Farfan and his family make no great profits from their enterprise.

His circus operates on about $15,000 a week, a sum, he said, that a large circus “pays for elephant hay.” That amount includes salaries for 40 performers. However, some poorly attended winter weeks have brought in as little as $2,000.

The reason the show can go on, he said, is that his 135-foot-long, 34-foot-high blue canvas tent, high wires, trapeze swings, lights and bleachers are all paid for.

“Everything you see here, it’s all mine. I made it,” he said. “Everything has the touch of my hands.”

He is proud of his bleachers, with their gently sloping plywood floor that “prevents children from falling through and women from losing their purses.” Unlike many circus tents, his is damaged only with three pencil-sized holes because of his care in handling it. “I’m the one who takes it down and puts it up,” Farfan said.

His sister, Alicia, is the star of the show. His niece, sister-in-law and cousins all perform and consider his circus their home.

“Other shows are big business. But here we are all family,” said Kathy Farfan, Carlos’ niece, who performs body-contorting acrobatics.

Farfan’s wife, Teresa, is the circus publicist. Her method:

“I go door-to-door to all the houses around the circus, leaving a flyer and three free tickets,” she said. If a town has a Spanish-language newspaper, she takes out a small ad.

The Circus D’Carlo usually doesn’t have a location itinerary more than a month ahead of time. This weekend they were in San Fernando; the next two weeks they’ll be at grocery-store parking lots in Pacoima; then they’re off to Carson. “I don’t know after that,” Teresa said.

There have been occasional problems. Several cities have been miffed when they stayed a few days longer than permitted. Recently in San Fernando, Teresa printed the city hall phone number for circus information on the publicity flyer, not realizing this would create a nuisance.

“We do the best we can with our limited resources,” Carlos Farfan said.

Despite the show’s managerial shortcomings, however, most cities said they would welcome the circus back to town in a minute. One South Gate official said Farfan left the baseball field where he had set up the tent “in better condition than it was when he arrived.”

The Rev. Luis Valbuena, pastor of Holy Family Catholic Church in Wilmington, asked the circus to perform near his church because most members of his predominantly Latino congregation cannot afford trips to Knott’s Berry Farm or Disneyland.

He recounted an incident in which rowdy youths ripped the tent with knives. When Carlos Farfan announced that the circus would have to leave town because of this kind of trouble, Father Valbuena asked members of a local gang to guard the tent at night.

“They are a barrio circus; they come to the middle of our neighborhood and perform just for us,” he said. “They know the people don’t have too many choices when it comes to family entertainment.”

Farfan said he hopes the good feelings the circus has engendered will allow it to return yearly to the barrio parks.

“In my heart, I know I have no competition,” he said. “I love to put on my jewelry, my costume and announce my own circus. I live for the moment the audience steps into my tent.”