Even under ordinary circumstances, corralling over 80 kids for a summer camp is no joke, but the Green Light Circus is anything but ordinary. For over 40 years, the program taught kids an assortment of different circus acts, including aerial acrobatics, juggling, and more.
Gabrielle Alvarez and Matilde Guerrero are two entertainers who came to Talkeetna to help instruct the kids. For three weeks, they, along with multiple other instructors, prepared the children for their performances. Matilde Guerrero said teaching the kids was a lot of fun, but it was a lot.
“It was a lot because it is many kids and many fearless kids that we have to wrangle every day to make sure they don’t hit themselves, they don’t fall, they don’t, I don’t know, do whatever kids do, to keep them safe,” she said.
Gabrielle Alvarez said one of the most striking things about teaching kids the different acts was how they overcame their fears. He described one child who stood out as she overcame her fears on top of a human pyramid–seven feet in the air.
“This is really high up there with nothing really holding on to her other than these two ladders that are just two individuals,” he said, “And she’s up there and you see her straight face[…] but then I don’t know her with a very solid face, she just says, scary.”
Alvarez said he hopes the kids take that perseverance and apply it in other areas of their lives.
“That’s something that really helps an individual get realized because there’s so many people that get stuck just because of fears, because of judgment that they feel from others, and that holds them back from flourishing into what they can be,” he said.
Both Alvarez and Guerrero hope to return and teach next year.
“I think it’s a beautiful tradition, and I hope it’s gonna keep going for many, many years and keep growing,” Guerrero said.
