Last year while I was still in school, I had a project titled “Drama Observed” for my photography class. Bogged down by the course load, I procrastinated the project until the weekend it was due. I needed something quick and easy like a football game or concert where I could get some easy snapshots of some action… unfortunately, those were all quite expensive. I found a circus on Eventbrite all the way in Queens and made the long journey from Manhattan expecting some sad variety show filled with dead-eyed performers juggling unlit torches or parading around a dog dressed as a lion.
But what I got was Flip Circus: a full two hours filled with some of the most incredible acts and entertainment I have ever seen in a modestly sized tent just off Woodhaven Boulevard in Forest Park for the low price of $50. My mind was blown at the sheer talent and variety of the performers, the production value, lights and live band. I laughed, gasped, ooh-ed and awe-ed, and the entire affair was extravagant enough that I completely forgot I was a grown man alone at the circus, with a large telephoto lens, taking pictures of the performers and families in attendance. A year later, I had to go again and can safely say that the owners, Jan and Carolina Vazquez, performers and crew completely out did themselves.
Jan and Carolina Vazquez grew up performing in their family’s show: Circus Vazquez, which was founded back in the 1960s. Jan Vazquez says he never really thought about how strange it was to be raised in that environment until he got older, and remembers how odd it must have been for the official tutor the Mexican government sent touring with the show to teach him, his sister and cousins.
“We had a small trailer with about maybe six to eight kids. We started practicing early on with our gymnastics training,” Jan Vazquez said. We did a lot of flexibility training, strengthening, tumbling, learning how to juggle… we learned a bit of everything as kids. You start to get inclined into a discipline that you enjoy most, and then just try to develop your skill in that area.”
Jan Vazquez began performing at a very young age starting with tumbling, or gymnastics, before moving on to juggling and even taking the lead role as ringmaster at the age of 14. Jan Vazquez currently orchestrates the show as Flip’s ringmaster, but still performs an act onstage. This year, Jan Vazquez can be seen balancing atop a rollerboard and juggling with his sister… while she stands on his shoulders.
Jan Vazquez says that his sister deals more with the business side of Flip, and challenges are often as surprising as the acts themselves. The Cartoon Poodles, which features a pod of trained poodles of all shapes and sizes dancing, jumping rope and more, signed a contract with Circus Vazquez, which is also in New York and soon to be at Citi Field the week of Thanksgiving.
However, a last-minute conflict meant the original circus couldn’t fit the act in, and Jan Vazquez had to adjust the already well-orchestrated schedule for Flip’s opening night performance to include the oodles of poodles with just one rehearsal. Though Vazquez admits the lack of prep time meant transitions could have been better, no one in the audience noticed and the delay between acts lasted less than a minute
This year, the role of Flip’s clown, who performs several times throughout the show and walks through the crowd in between some acts during the transitions, was filled by Professional Clown Misha Usov of Russia, whose on-stage character is reminiscent of Mr. Bean.
Though not your traditional clown with a full face of make-up, Usov quickly became a crowd favorite, running around the audience throwing popcorn and showering them with water during an avant-garde performance of “Singing in the Rain.” Spotting my camera, Usov ran over to me. I, and one very kind woman seated behind me, desperately threw our bodies over it as the audience howled at the clown’s antics.
Less humored, I confronted the clown after the show, and he graciously took a photo with me. A clown of culture, Usov looks forward to visiting the Met and other museums while in the city and is grateful to be a part of Flip Circus’s 2025-26 tour.
“[Jan] is a great ringmaster and boss… he’s 27 and he’s the boss, that’s amazing,” Usov said. “It’s like family, the circus, they ask you what you need and they’re ready to help you in a second.”
The artist community of circus performers is quite small, and Flip recruits from all over the world and is always on the lookout for new talent to find “something you’ve never seen before.” Usov, a seasoned performer, says he enjoys the atmosphere of Flip Circus and the closer proximity to the crowd than most other shows, which Jan Vazquez said was a reason he and the other Flip Circus Vazquez’s split off in the first place.
“That makes the artists feel the applause more, feel more of the excitement from the people,” Jan Vazquez said. “It makes you work better; and me being in the show, I can feel that personally. It feels more intimate and community driven.”
Not a single act felt out of place or outshone the others, and they were all unique in their own right. Flip Circus is not for the faint of heart, as several of the artists performed up in the rafters above the heads of even the live band, whose members stood on a stage raised at least 20 feet off the ground. The contortionist drew many gasps from the crowd as he stretched his body around, perfectly in time to music and sound effects that emphasized the bodily distortions.
Though many of the performers seemed to defy both gravity and death while balancing on each other, in the sky or hanging from the ceiling, they never seemed to be in any real danger. Kids in attendance smiled throughout the show and adults quickly fumbled to get their phones out of their pockets to capture video of the artists’ more impressive feats. Jan and Carolina Vazquez’s very own show lives up to the good name and long history of Circus Vazquez, and is easily one of the best ways to spend your evening out in Queens this holiday season.
