Cirque du Soleil is coming to town, bringing with it an enchanting procession of unruly clowns, contortionists, jugglers, acrobats, puppeteers and singers. In fact, Cirque’s new show is called Corteo, the Italian word for cortege or procession.

Despite its gloomy subject matter about the death of a clown, Corteo is more of a lively festival than a brooding narrative, taking the form of a dream sequence that recalls the clown’s flamboyant life and envisions his spectacular idea of paradise.

“The act is loosely based around a theme, but it’s more theatrical,” Artistic Director Gerard Theoret said. “Basically, it’s him imagining all his friends coming to his funeral, remembering his life in a very skewed way, recalling all the women.”

As the artistic director of such an elaborate production, Theoret has a large assortment of responsibilities.

“I work on quality control, supervising both what artists do in the act as well as the wardrobe department, lighting, and sound,” Theoret said. “There are directors for all those departments, but I make sure everything runs smoothly. It’s also a management job.”

The performance certainly requires all the versatility and resourcefulness Theoret can muster, consisting of acts that range from the wild pandemonium of Teatro Intimo, a raucous affair that results from the reenactment of Romeo and Juliet in a miniature theater, to the impish fun of the bouncing beds scene.

Prior to his role as artistic director for Cirque, Theoret worked as a teacher at a number of venues, including a brief stint with the UW dance department, during which, he says, he choreographed a dance called Trio Tango.

His current work is a hiatus from his usual engagement in dance, but the opportunity to be involved in the creation of such a spectacular production more than compensates for this departure from the norm. Besides, Theoret’s colleagues are to be envied.

“We have 62 artists in the cast, including Russians and Bulgarians who were in the Olympics,” he said. Theoret says that this accounts for the amazing high bar and strap act.

The strap act consists of a male and female who perform a series of graceful movements while using sheer strength and agility to hang suspended in the air by a pair of straps. The high bar act occurs in the finale, which is entitled Tournik. According to the Cirque Web site, this number “marries horizontal bar techniques with circus arts.”

Other sequences include the chandeliers act, in which women dressed in lingerie dangle from chandeliers, and the teeterboard act, in which a handful of clowns hold a competition to determine who can soar through the air with the most dexterity and poise.

Theoret sums up the experience of Corteo by quoting the Italian novelist and poet Cesare Pavese.

“‘We do not remember days, we remember moments,’” Theoret said. “You will go away with a lot of animating moments.”