Cirque du Soleil has rolled into Kingston once again, this time bringing their show Corteo.
CKWS got a special backstage pass to watch the Canadian troupe rehearse for their show tonight.
Corteo is the story of a clown that’s dreaming about his own funeral.
“What makes this show very unique is we have the stage right in the middle of the arena, so people sit on both sides it. It was created like this because the creator of the show wanted to give people an actor’s perspective.” said Cirque du Soleil’s publicist Maxwell Batista.
The dancers were hard at work rehearsing for their show at the Leon’s Centre.
Johan Juslin, one of the performers with Cirque du Soleil, said, “There’s lot of different disciplines, lot of nice surprises, so I would say everyone who comes to watch will find something that they’ll like.”
But the journey before the final production gets on stage is not easy.
Harvey Donnelly has been performing with the troupe for seven years. “For every time you see us land a trick, you can bet yourself that we fell on that trick about a 100 times,” Donnelly said. “What you see when you see us jumping up and down, that’s months, years, hours of training.”
“To the audience it might look like we don’t mess up, but every time we jump we know that there is a slight mistake that could be better.”
Cirque du Soleil started off with just 20 street performers in 1984 and now the troupe has more than 1,300 artists from over 50 countries. The Quebec-based entertainment company has done shows in more than 45 countries so far.
The shows are being held at the former K-rock Centre, now officially known as Leon’s Centre.
“Having cirque come to visit us and and for us to be able to present Cirque is an incredible opportunity and milestone for us,” said Lynn Corletto, general manager at Leon’s Centre.
Corteo continues until Sunday July 8th.