I.FLY opens its first indoor trapeze school at Samanea in Westbury

An enormous contraption breaks through the second floor of the Samanea New York atrium in Westbury — a 23-foot-high trapeze, beckoning to the daring.

A narrow silver ladder leads up, up, up. Climbing it is scary, say those with the nerve to try. "It shakes," says Krosby Karpel, 8, of Woodbury.

Once people reach the trapeze platform, an instructor helps them to take the leap — or, as trapeze artists say, to fly. "It feels like you’re in a movie," Lily Pfeffer, 14, of Bethpage, says of swinging through the open air. Think: "The Greatest Showman."

'LONG TIME COMING'

It’s taken 20 years for I.FLY Trapeze school to find an indoor location on Long Island so that their circus arts program for children and adults, which runs outdoors at Eisenhower Park in East Meadow from Memorial Day through Labor Day, could stay here through the winter instead of moving to Arizona seasonally. "We’ve been looking for an indoor space as long as we’ve been outdoors," co-owner Anthony Rosamilia says. "This was a long time coming."

Rosamilia co-owns the trapeze school, which also offers classes in hanging silks and aerial hoops, with this brother, Marco. The brothers needed to find a building high enough to accommodate the trapeze.

Since its recent opening, I.Fly has been offering 90-minute classes Tuesdays through Sundays to anyone ages 4 and older who, according to Anthony Rosamilia, just have to be willing to try.

Classes work like this: A group of six to nine participants are in each 90-minute session. The first hour is spent practicing swinging technique including pulling your legs up to the bar so you can let go and hang upside down by your knees.

Participants take multiple turns being strapped into a harness that will keep them from plunging if they fall — an instructor on the ground is holding the rope connected to your harness, and, in addition, there’s an enormous rope net that catches you when you descend.

The instructor on the ground shouts out directions and encouragement.

"Look at your hands!"

"Knees up!"

"Hands off NOW!"

"It’s definitely nerve-wracking when you get up there and you feel that uneasiness because you’re very high up," says Zachary Gosse, 38, a special-education teacher from Wantagh who participated in a previous class.

MISS. MISS. SUCCESS!

The final half hour of class is the pinnacle — when students then use their skills in an attempt to successfully reach an instructor swinging from a second trapeze who will catch them by their wrists midair and allow them to transfer off their swing to hang from his arms.

One by one the students rub chalk on their hands and try. Miss, fall to the net. Miss, fall to the net. Miss, fall to the net. Class members — in a recent class they ranged from children to teens to adults — "ohhh" with compassion when students miss.

Then they start to connect, leading to cheering.

"I was definitely scared when I was going up there," says a successful Lily. "You know you’re hooked up but you definitely feel the adrenalin rush."

Says Michaela Vilardi, 8, of Melville: "Once I grabbed his hands, my stomach stopped turning."

"Do you want me to send the video to Gran?" asks her mother, Michelle Valenti, 33, a nurse. Michaela says, "Yes."

Mall goers stop on the second-story balcony to watch the excitement.

Lisa Choi, 38, of Brooklyn, who works in health insurance, stops with her sons, Benjamin, 9, and Timothy, 5. "It just looks cool for the kids. It looks exciting. Thrilling. So acrobatic," Choi says.

Carol Besen, 80, of Roslyn Heights, is another spectator. "I just think that this place gives people of all ages an opportunity for a memory of a lifetime," she says.

Would she try it herself?

"In my next life I would," she says. "Absolutely."