Siblings Danyel Reyes and Selyna Bogino just set foot in the U.S. for the first time about a month ago, when they began touring with the Flynn Creek Circus northern California summer 2016 tour.
The circus is in Morgan Hill this week, and the brother and sister from a small town on the Ticino River, near Milan, Italy, have enjoyed the generous, welcoming hospitality heaped upon them by the locals and their fellow circus travelers, who are mostly American.
Danyel, 23, said he is impressed with how large, vast and open the landscape is in northern California and Santa Clara Valley, where rolling hills and jagged canyons bare of any structures can stretch for miles.
He also enjoys Butterfinger candy bars, which apparently do not exist in their native northern Italy, or for that matter any place they’re familiar with in Europe. He said he has lost count of how many Butterfingers he has eaten in the last month.
Selyna, 26, has been inspired by the friendliness of complete American strangers she has encountered. As the Flynn Creek Circus has stopped in Mendocino, Ukiah, Santa Rosa and areas in between, one of Selyna’s public relations tasks has been to hand out flyers promoting the show. She has received a warm reception from almost everyone.
“It’s easy here because everyone is so open,” Selyna said in between bites of a hamburger and fries at In ‘n Out on Cochrane Road. “They seem very interested in what we’re talking about. I’m not so confident usually. People here are very nice.”
“The friendliness shocked me at first,” Danyel said.
The Flynn Creek Circus premiered in Morgan Hill July 21, but the show continues at the Outdoor Sports Center on Condit Road July 22, 23 and 24. The circus is an all-human show, featuring jugglers, knife throwers, acrobats, aerialists and more theatrics. The Flynn Creek Circus is stopping in Morgan Hill for its second year in a row.
Danyel and Selyna come from a long line of circus performers, going back four generations in their family. Danyel is a juggler, and Selyna does a hula-hoop performance and her “main act,” foot juggling. Their mother is a circus juggler and their father does a unicycle act, Danyel explained.
The siblings have traveled all over western Europe with different circuses and variety shows, which are especially popular in Germany, they explained. More than a year ago, they met Flynn Creek Circus co-founder Blaze Birge and longtime performer David Jones at a variety show in Frankfurt, Germany. The duo invited them to join Flynn Creek for the 2015 summer tour, but Danyel and Selyna didn’t have enough notice to make all the travel logistics work.
But this year Flynn Creek’s offer remained and, despite a few road bumps—particularly in acquiring travel visas from Italy—Danyel and Selyna were determined to make it to the U.S.
The siblings gave a short preview of their uncanny abilities during the public comment portion of the July 20 city council meeting. The rapt, unexpecting audience was enthralled with the performers while Morgan Hill Youth Sports Alliance President Jeff Dixon announced the details of the circus, which is taking place at the Outdoor Sports Center on Condit Road.
Unsurprisingly, Selyna said it was their first city council meeting, an affair she always imagined would be more “serious” than her experience, which included a prolonged ovation for the two Italians from the Morgan Hill audience. The siblings didn’t stick around for the rest of the July 20 meeting after their brief performance.
Their host July 22 was not the first American who thought they should experience In ‘n Out, as Danyel and Selyna ate at a different location of the chain shortly after they arrived in California—and they were already familiar with the secret “animal style” menu option. They said the burger tasted more or less “the same” as fast-food burgers in Europe, but supposedly with fresher ingredients. Restaurant portions in general, they have noticed, are many times larger in the U.S. than in Europe.
They joked about the many details of everyday life that differentiate the U.S. from Europe, including the variety of currency units (“I need a tutorial about coins,” Selyna said.) and the confusion that is quick to arise when trying to convert miles to kilometers.
And while Bay Area traffic tops most locals’ list of daily complaints, Danyel and Selyna say the courtesy on the roads is refreshing compared to how motorists drive in Italy. “Here it’s a lot slower, and everything seems more relaxed,” Danyel said. “In Europe, even if there’s only three cars on the road, it’s a huge mess.” He added he has heard car horns maybe “twice” since they arrived in the U.S., while the sound is constant on the roads of Europe.
Circus audiences in the U.S. are more receptive and participatory than those in Europe, the siblings added. Flynn Creek Circus goers react enthusiastically and frequently to a single daring or complicated move, rather than waiting until the end of an act to applaud. He said he prefers that kind of energy from an audience.
“Having a great audience, it’s fuel,” he said.
Hearing Selyna and Danyel talk about their busy circus lives in Europe (particularly in Germany, where such shows are highly popular), it becomes apparent that smaller, independent big-top circuses are not as common in the U.S. as they are in the Old World.
“People enjoy the circus (in California) but they don’t (want) to go to something new, or they think the circus is for kids or something,” Selyna said.
The Flynn Creek Circus performances at the Outdoor Sports Center, 16500 Condit Road, are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. July 21, 7 p.m July 22, 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. July 23, and 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. Sunday, July 24. To purchase tickets and for more information, visit flynncreekcircus.com.
