WILKES-BARRE TOWNSHIP, LUZERNE COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) — Making its return to Luzerne County for the first time in over a decade, Cirque du Soleil is back at Mohegan Arena.
The penguins are out and the bugs have taken over Mohegan Arena, at least until Sunday, all for Cirque du Soleil’s ‘Ovo’ production.
A 22-foot-tall egg is the star of the show as ‘ovo’ means egg in Portuguese.
But have you ever seen bugs doing world-class acrobatics?
A massive stage was built inside the arena. Along with a backstage area.
“We hire 100 local stagehands every time we set up the stage and tear it down, which allows us to do it in one day.”
Janie Mallet is with the tour management team, she explains how 27 truckloads of equipment is brought in for the show, including this metal structure for acrobatic training.
“We’ll have an aerial point there for the aerial silk or aerial straps, we have cradle chairs on which porters will stand and will throw the flyers across to the next platform about 18 feet apart.”
And it wouldn’t be Cirque du Soleil without beautiful costumes.
“When an artist comes on the show, they get a 3d scan so that we make sure that they’re really fitted properly, but each costume is made for what they do in the show.”
More than 800 handmade pieces of the costume are made up for every single performance, that’s why a costume shop is brought to each venue for this entire tour.
After the performance, the costumes go into the washers they travel with to then be air-dried and ready for the next show.
Cirque du Soleil tour officials tell us they did sixty loads of laundry just yesterday to get ready for tonight’s show at 7 p.m.
Running through Sunday, tickets are still available.
