Mixture of emotions await Edmonton audiences at Cirque du Soilel's Corteo

Expect laughter and tears — from both yourself and others — at the latest Cirque du Soleil production to grace Rogers Place.

Cirque du Soleil: Corteo tells the story of Mauro, a clown who dreams about his funeral.

Performers mix a combination of circus acrobatics, comedy and drama to tell his tale.

Julie Dionne, an acrobat/artist in the show who also serves as Corteo's artistic coach, told CTV News Edmonton audiences can expect a wide range of emotions while watching the show which runs Wednesday through Sunday at the downtown arena.

"(Mauro) is imagining his own funeral, which can be a dark subject, but it's not made in a dark way," Dionne said Wednesday at rehearsal. "There's a lot of humour, a lot of lightness, the love of friends and family."

She said Corteo, which premiered in Montreal in 2005 and has been staged in 60 cities in 19 countries, is a show to which both children and adults can relate.

"It's a show for the whole family," Dionne said of Corteo, which has been seen by more than nine million people.

Alison Crawford, the artistic director for Coreto who's been with the production created, written and directed by Daniele Finzi Pasca since it started, calls the show staged in the round "a very human performance."

Coreto began as a Big Top show before it was transformed into an arena experience in 2016.

"Artists on stage, to be in the 360, they have to be alive everywhere," Crawford told CTV News Edmonton of the "high acrobatics, high risk" show that incorporates "lots of laughs, too."

"It makes a whole different feeling on the stage."

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Marek Tkach