LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — A new Cirque du Soleil documentary is about to hit Prime Video.
According to Amazon, "Cirque du Soleil: Without A Net" will stream globally on July 25.
The movie focuses on "O" and how the company rebooted the production over a year after the world shut down due to the pandemic.
"It's really difficult to live without purpose," one performer said in the trailer.
"Mentally, it was tough, not knowing when we would be able to go back to work, if we would be able to go back to work," another performer said.
During the pandemic, Cirque du Soleil laid off about 3,400 employees and filed for bankruptcy in June 2020. In November 2020, the company announced they had closed a deal from secured lenders and emerged from creditor protection. In July 2021, performers once again graced the "O" stage at the Bellagio.
Channel 13 spoke to Eric Grilly, former President of Resident Shows and Affiliate Shows, who previously told us the pandemic was a big hurdle for the company.
"We made a conscious effort to stay in touch with our artists and held monthly Zooms to try to keep them aware of what was going on. When shows started coming back, they had capacity limits, which weren't viable for us to reopen to perform in a theater of 25% or 50% occupancy," Grilly said. "But once the path became clear to us and we started ramping up, we started thinking about what do we do? We invested heavily in health and safety protocols. It started with us building a testing center that was testing 1,100 people a day. An artist or technician would be tested early in the morning and if they were cleared, they would then go to the theater. Through the rigor we took in our protocols, when we opened the shows, we never had to close them again. I think it was an important thing for our new investors, but also for our employees who had been out of work for months."
You can watch the full trailer for "Cirque du Soleil: Without A Net" below.
