To create over 80 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.

The set and décor of Corteo plunge the audience into a lyrical world, a strange area between heaven and earth.

The Stage

Set Designer Jean Rabasse has divided the rotating stage in two, with each half of the audience facing the other half, so they see not only the performance, but also have a performer’s-eye-view of the audience This is a first for Cirque du Soleil.

• There is one turntable built into the stage, which is about 41 feet long, and the track is almost 120 feet long.
• More than 9,000 images were used in the R&D phase of the set design to blend many visual styles and influences, from the baroque to the modern.
• A completely new stage and acrobatic structure have been fabricated for Corteo arena tour. A good portion of the original design had to be adapted for arena touring.

The “Patience”

The “Patience” is a massive technical structure made of steel above the stage. It is one of the most complex set elements in the show and is used to transport artists, various scenic elements and pieces of acrobatic equipment on and off stage from above.

• The Patience has three rails that traverse the stage.
• Each rail is fitted with two platform-like carts to carry the scenic and acrobatic elements.
• The six carts have a lifting capacity of 500 lbs and a top speed of four feet per second.
• The Patience is 40 feet above the stage. It is entirely suspended from the sealing structure of the arena.

The Curtains

It was a visit to the exhibition “The Great Parade: Portrait of the Artist as Clown” at the National Gallery of Canada that inspired Jean Rabasse to paint the Corteo Procession on the curtains. His design was influenced by the work of such painters as Willette, Picasso, Tiepolo, Pelez and Knight.

The inspiration for the show’s curtains was an 1885 painting by the Parisian artist Adolphe Willette.

The two enormous baroque-style “Roll Drop” curtains (58 feet wide and almost 40 feet high), and the four sideways-opening Italian-style curtains are among the most striking scenic elements in the show. They were sewn in Canada and sent to France to be painted.

• It took more than two weeks to paint each of the central curtains in watercolors.
• The central curtains are attached to huge supports which contain winding motors to roll them.

The Labyrinth

In the center of the circular stage is a labyrinth which exactly reproduces the proportions and size of the classic design on the floor of the aisle in Chartres cathedral.

• The labyrinth incorporates an eight-inch Moebius strip painted at its center as a symbol of infinity and continuity.

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 sparkling “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 into 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 storyline.

Cast and Crew

• The cast is an international one, representing the following 16 nationalities. Performers are from Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Romania, Russia, United Kingdom, Ukraine, United States and Uzbekistan.

• Although you will generally hear French and English spoken on-site, many other languages are spoken: Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and more.