Cirque du Soleil is bringing its production of Corteo to Penticton this week.
Corteo tells the story of Mauro the Dreamer Clown, who is imagining his funeral procession as a joyous procession while featuring acrobatics and other incredible elements.
“We follow him through his life. He’s celebrating his life and we get to meet all the people that were very dear to him during his life,” said Cirque du Soleil Corteo’s artistic director, Alison Crawford.
“There’s high acrobatics, there’s magic, there’s laughter — it’s a very family-oriented show. Lots of angels, lots of love, lots of happiness, live music, and great costumes.”
Corteo first debuted in 2005 and has since travelled the world, visiting more than 20 countries. Last week the production celebrated its 1000th show.
Crawford started with Cirque du Soleil 26 years ago and is in charge of ensuring that what the audience sees every night is at the highest quality.
“I make sure that sound, costumes, music, make-up, acrobatics… I have a team underneath me, but I have to make sure that everything is up to standard. I love it. It’s the best job ever. We travel all over the world. We just did Europe last year and we will be coming back to Europe at the end of this year,” said Crawford.
“Every night is a little different, it’s a live show. We say it’s not a museum piece, so it does move and live. And that’s really wonderful is it’s very human, the show, you get to meet all the artists.”
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It takes a full team to bring this death-defying performance to life. There are 27 technicians, a touring management department, kitchen staff, an artistic team, a coach, a physiotherapist, wardrobe and stage management.
The show also travels with 53 artists and each acrobat, or artist, has multiple parts in the show to play.
“My main act could be bouncing bed, that I’m representing childhood. It’s Mauro dreaming about his childhood. There’s six of us, we are jumping on the bed, doing pillow fighting, doing flips, jumping on the rails,” said Cirque du Soleil Corteo’s acrobat Marie-Christine Menard-Bergeron.
“It’s a big, organized chaos, but it’s really an act that’s loved by the children and loved by the adult because everybody has done a jump on a trampoline in his life, it’s just like to see it onstage in a more like acrobatic way.”
And with a show that requires precision and attention to detail, everything down to the thousands of pieces of costume that performers wear have been carefully designed.
“You will see a magic show. It’s a show full of details and costume full of details, it’s a lot of pieces,” said Cirque du Soleil Corteo’s wardrobe and costume head, Catherine Duval.
“We travelled with over 2500 pieces of costume. For each show, we are using between 600 to 700 pieces. What is nice with Corteo’s costume, we don’t want to dress our people like bugs or creatures, they are who they are on stage and the costume helps them to bring this magic human side on stage.”
Performers have four to five looks per show.
And according to Duval, when artists sign a contract, wardrobe becomes in charge of their hair and facial hair throughout the tour.
“They cannot have whatever they want, they cannot have purple hair, they cannot have bright nail polish because it’s a period show,” said Duval.
“This is a good challenge for some of them and one artist that you will see on stage tonight. She is our hairdresser on tour.”
All the work behind the scenes and on stage is done in hopes of transporting the audience into a lovely world.
“I remember the first time I saw a show, I was about nine years old, and I remember nothing about the show, no act, nothing. Nothing really marked me except the way I felt watching the show. I was amazed, it was magical, it was beyond the world,” said Menard-Bergeron.
“We want to make people feel something more than just being impressed by how amazing we are. Just to carry them in this story with us and all those emotions for them.”
Cirque Du Soleil will be in Penticton until Sunday to perform eight shows at the South Okanagan Events Centre.
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