High above a barn floor, 17-year-old Lucia Mason moves with the confidence of a circus performer.
Using only her arms, she effortlessly climbs 20 feet of fabric and twists two long aerial silks once, twice, three times around her waist, until she is wrapped in a cocoon of fabric.
Then, the Four Rivers Public Charter School student pauses — the silks swaying in the breeze — takes a breath and, with breathtaking speed, drops.
Mere feet from the mat, she catches herself.
The square white barn, which sits behind Mason’s house in Montague Center, has rigging for various types of trapeze apparatus fixed to the ceiling.
Her father Chris Mason converted the building into a circus performance space in 2008 to house The Traveling Rhubarb Circus, a youth circus troupe Mason formed along with other kids in the neighborhood.
Four years after the group put on its first show in 2012, Lucia Mason is getting ready to step into a brighter spotlight.
Along with 13-year-old Serafina Walker, a seventh-grader at Stoneleigh-Burnham School, Mason has been selected to travel and perform with Circus Smirkus, an award-winning international youth circus based in Vermont.
The two girls auditioned at the circus’ facility in Greensboro in January, after submitting video auditions in the fall of 2015.
“I’m really excited about this summer,” Walker said, while standing in the barn next to Mason. “When I was little I used to watch circus on TV or in videos and be like, ‘oh! that’s so cool, I wish I could do that,’ and now I get to.”
The two girls train together at the New England Center for Circus Arts in Brattleboro, Vt.
“I really love doing circus,” Mason chimed in, “and if I didn’t have that, I think I would be really sad overall.”
They’ll be two of about 30 performers, ages 10 to 18, who will perform with Circus Smirkus. The circus will travel all over New England and upstate New York to put on more than 60 shows between June and August.
“It was a lot of fun,” Mason said, back on the mat later, about Traveling Rhubarb, “because it was an opportunity to do circus with friends. It was my own circus, a place where I could perform more.”
Over the few years following 2008, the group performed in front of crowds packed inside that white barn.
They took donations at those performances and used the money to buy props and upgrade the barn.
“There’s some talented and developed circus performers (in the group),” Chris Mason said.
He said the group is still active, but the original members are getting older and moving on to other things.
Mason said she’ll perform aerials on a rope and on unique aerial apparatus, which she hasn’t seen yet.
Walker will perform contortion, teeterboard, partner acrobatics and aerial screw.
“It’s like a pole hanging in the air with a little screw thing around it,” Walker said about the apparatus. “I’m excited to see what that will look like.”
From unicycling, to juggling, to high-flying and death-defying trapeze acts, Circus Smirkus is a pinnacle achievement for the young circus performers.
Along with performances, the girls will also take care of props, sell tickets and popcorn, set up lighting and help raise the bigtop.
The circus tour is a culmination of thousands of practice hours. Both girls started practicing circus when they were young.
Walker started taking gymnastic classes when she was 3 years old, but soon switched over to circus, which she said allows more freedom for creativity by performers.
“I train every week, six to 16 hours of circus, six hours of dance, and I also go to The Y in the morning and work out with my mom,” Walker said.
Mason has a similiar regiment — she takes classes at NECA, trains at home in the barn and plays sports, including Ultimate Frisbee.
Circus Smirkus’ first 2016 performance is June 25 in Greensboro.
Training for the performances begins for Mason and Walker a few weeks before on Saturday, June 4.
“That’s the one day I have memorized, because everything has to be done by June 4th,” Mason said.
To prepare, the two girls have ramped up their personal training by adding stretching routines and specific exercises suggested by the circus.
After Mason drops to the mat, she unwinds from the silks and stands up — smiling.
Behind her, Walker takes a few steps and dives into three front handsprings, landing perfectly balanced on two feet.
The two girls tumble and flip with natural ease and obvious enjoyment.
Circus is clearly what they love, and being able to travel with the circus is a dream-come-true, they said.
The girls will perform with Circus Smirkus at the Three County Fairgrounds in Northampton on July 14, 15 and 16.
“I just like doing aerials in particular,” Mason said, “performing is my means of doing that, but the actual activity is what draws me.”
“I like to make the audience smile. When I’m performing and I see the audience smiling, it makes me happy inside,” Walker adds. “So it’s not only for the audience, it’s also for my enjoyment too.”
For more information, visit www.smirkus.org
You can reach Andy Castillo at: acastillo@recorder.com
or 413-772-0261, ext. 263
On Twitter: @AndyCCastillo