Good day to you! Last night I got the opportunity to check out Cirque Du Soleil’s show Corteo at the Infinite Energy Arena in Duluth, Ga. I have tried not to miss any of their shows, they are so magical and entertaining and I really love the costuming and storylines in them. It was a smaller show but the impact was still there and the acts, breathtaking. Inside I share with you images from the show thats here in Atlanta for only a little time, five reasons to see the show and a video clip. Enjoy and Happy Thursday everyone.
The Acts:
Suspended Pole(My Fav)
Accompanied by the distant sounds of guitar and impassioned vocals, a young ingénue discovers the sheer pleasure of exploring movement and contortion-like shapes while flying above the ground on a suspended pole.
Acrobatic Ladder
A ladder specialist amazes the audience with his unnerving balance and finesse as he performs on various ladders, trying desperately to reach the angel who is watching him from above.
Artist Marionette
Like a live puppet, an artist marionette suddenly appears in an innovative, rigging apparatus to play with Mauro the Dreamer Clown in a setting which evokes a beach scene from his childhood.
Bouncing Bed
Like a gaggle of young kids playing in their grandparents’ room, six artists jump on two 600-pound beds that move on rotating platforms. In a playful atmosphere, they perform acrobatic feats, each more daring than the last.
Helium Dance
A tender and poetic moment between Mauro the Dreamer Clown and his little Clowness who bespells the audience with child-like delight.
Just to name a few
The Characters:
The Clowness(my fav)
The Clowness is an actress, a veritable Grande Dame of the stage, who somehow found herself a part of this nutty troupe. Her professionalism and her strength of character allow her to bear the foolishness of her partners, whom she never fails to charm.
The Little Clown
A diminutive clown who’s in love with the Clowness, the Little Clown is always ready to play tricks on his associates. Impish and lively, he is both an endearing companion and a force to be reckoned with.
The Giant Clown
Although only an amateur opera singer, the Giant Clown imagines himself to be a great artist of worldwide renown. Without doubt, it is with him that the Dead Clown is closest, almost like brothers.
Costuming/Makeup
To create over 260 costumes for Corteo’s cast, Costume Designer Dominique lemieux set out to accentuate the natural beauty of the artists.
- She used more than a hundred different fabrics and trims, concentrating on a subtle color palette that includes blues, pinks, fuchsia and gold with appliquéd spangles and jewels.
- Most of the fabrics were dyed, sublimated and silk screen printed to give them a patina of age while retaining the attributes necessary for high-performance acrobatics.
- There are numerous angels on Corteo such as the
little angel, the archangels and the grand angels. on average, each angel dress requires 25 meters of fabric which translates to over 500 meters of material (or the approximate length of five football fields) appearing on stage each night. - For a single year of operation, performers require over 200 bottles of liquid foundation, hundreds of eye shadows, blushes, pencils and lipsticks as well as more than 50 liters of make-up remover.
- The smallest shoe size in the show is a children’s size 3 and the largest is an 18 EEE.
Acrobatic and Rigging Corteo features a variety of innovative acrobatic equipment elements that were invented at Cirque du Soleil and designed to mesh seamlessly with the set design.
- The “Paradis” act brings together two circus skills:
The Korean Cradle and the Tramponet (a combination of trampoline and safety net). The artists are thrown between two Korean Cradle double frame stations and rebound off the Tramponet, which is 80 feet long. - The “Tournik” consists of a steel frame and twin high bars mounted on the stage turnables.
- The “lustres” are giant chandeliers that float in mid- air above the stage. They are decorated with some 4,000 parkling “jewels” and garlands of reflective acrylic spheres.
- There are three custom-built ladders in the show, each designed to meet a different acrobatic demand. They include a bungee ladder and a tall ladder which is almost 15 feet high.
The Show:
- Corteo first premiered in Montreal in 2005 and has visited more than 60 cities in 19 different countries as a Big Top show before transforming in an arena show in 2016.
- Corteo celebrated its 3,500th performance in 2015 in Bogotá, Colomba.
- More than 8 million people have been enthralled by the world of Corteo.
- In the remount process, from the Big tent to the arena, new acts have been added to the Corteo show with a small adaptation to the original story line.Cast and Crew:
- The cast is an international one, representing more than 15 nationalities. Performers are from Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Romania, Russia, united Kingdom, ukraine, united States, uzbekistan and more.
- Although you will generally hear French and English spoken on-site, many other languages are spoken: Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and more.
Corteo, which means “cortege” in Italian, is a joyous procession, a festive parade imagined by a clown.
The show brings together the passion of the actor with the grace and power of the acrobat to plunge the audience into a theatrical world of fun, comedy and spontaneity situated in a mysterious space between heaven and earth.
The clown pictures his own funeral taking place in a carnival atmosphere, watched over by quietly caring angels. Juxtaposing the large with the small, the ridiculous with the tragic and the magic of perfection with the charm of imperfection, the show highlights the strength and fragility of the clown, as well as his wisdom and kindness, to illustrate the portion of humanity that is within each of us. The music, by turns lyrical and playful, carries Corteo through a timeless celebration in which illusion teases reality.
