Alyson Mattei is within days of heading off to join the circus.
The 12-year-old East Highlands resident isn't running away, but she is leaving home Thursday to spend three months on the East Coast with Circus Smirkus, a 23-year-old traveling youth circus based in Greensboro, Vt.
She will live and work as a trouper during the 2010 Circus Smirkus Big Top Tour: Wilderness Wonders. The tour, which runs from June 25 to Aug. 15, visits 17 towns in Vermont, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Maine.
Story continues below
Special to The Press-Enterprise
Alyson Mattei, 12, of East Highlands, will perform with a traveling youth circus based in Vermont.
Her parents, Lisa and George Mattei, won't be traveling with her, though they do plan to visit and catch some of the shows.
"I think she's going to be so tired," Lisa Mattei said. "They do 70 shows, two shows a day for seven weeks."
Alyson, a performer for four years with the Great All American Youth Circus in Redlands, auditioned for the opportunity.
She first sent in a videotape of her aerial performances and then was invited to go to Vermont to audition, her mother said.
She wasn't nervous about the audition, she said, just about whether she would be chosen.
"I knew this was going to be my chance," she said.
Alyson specializes in aerial work on ribbons and hanging cradles, and acrobatics. Her father was a gymnast as a young man and Alyson started out in that as well. But when the family moved from Azusa to East Highlands, they discovered the Y Circus in Redlands and Alyson decided she liked that better, her mother said.
The youngster thinks she might like a career in the circus, or maybe in stunt work. But she also has a scientific side.
"Ultimately she has talked about being an entomologist. She's always been the bug girl," Lisa Mattei said.
Alyson said she is excited about the possibility that her aerial and acrobatic work will be seen by representatives of some of the major circuses.
"Ringling Bros. comes and watches the shows," she said. "The more-professional circuses come and watch and you kind of get graded."
For now, the family is involved in a headlong race to be ready to leave by Thursday. Alyson, a student at Beattie Middle School in East Highlands, has been taking her finals early in order to meet the deadline.
"I think this will be such a great experience for her," Lisa Mattei said.
