Drexel Hill gymnast coming home with Cirque du Soleil’s Cortéo

As a child growing up in Drexel Hill, Jonathan Buese wasn’t thinking about being one of the most impressive circus performers on tour with Cirque du Soleil.

Yet, there he will be from May 30 to June 2 at the Liacouras Center at Temple University as part of “Cortéo,” Cirque du Soleil’s latest touring show. Check http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/corteo for tickets

“We moved when I was 6,” said Buese. “I actually haven’t been back since, so I’m very excited. I’ve been with Cirque since 2010. This is my fourth show with the company. I’ve been lucky to have dipped my toes into a lot of waters.”

Buese and his family eventually moved to Florida, where he blossomed into one of the top gymnasts in the nation. While at the University of Iowa he competed in the NCAA championships and caught the eye of a few scouts.

“I got kind of lucky and was the right size and weight and the right availability and things worked out,” Buese said. “It was kind of crazy how quickly it all came together. I was kind of scared, because the act that I had to go do first was like a flying act. We had gymnastics bars, but then there was a big swinging trapeze under that and we were 30-35 feet in the air. I was having nightmares before I even started.”

Buese is a little closer to the ground now. He performs the “Tournik” act, which marries horizontal bar techniques with circus arts. It’s often said that the complexity of this act defies gravity. The original act takes the traditional high-bar apparatus but creates a twist by fusing four high bars to make a cube.

“I started with the scariest one and then descended into a little bit less scary,” Buese said.

Cortéo is an Italian word meaning “cortège” or procession. The show is a contemporary circus show about a clown who watches his own funeral taking place in a carnival-like atmosphere. It was partly inspired by “The Grand Parade: Portrait of the Artist as Clown” on display at the National Gallery of Canada and the movie “I Clowns” by Federico Fellini.

In a Cirque du Soleil first, the stage is central in the arena and divides the venue, with each half of the audience facing the other half, giving a unique perspective not only of the show but a performer’s eye view of the audience. It’s an atmosphere never seen before in the company’s arena shows. The set curtains, inspired by the Eiffel Tower, and the central curtains, which were hand-painted, give a grandiose feel to the stage.

“’Cortéo’ is an amazing show and it’s totally different from anything else that I’ve done with the company before,” Buese said. “Everyone in the show is just themselves. So playing myself was something that actually was kind of a challenge.”

Buese has performed in Cirque du Soleil shows “Mystère,” “Alegría” and “TOTEM.” He has been able to travel the world with one of the most well-known performance groups in the world.

“It’s kind of like work, but it’s not so bad when you get to get all over the place,” Buese said. “At the end of it you just realize how kind of fortunate you are.”

Buese isn’t about to slow down when it comes to performing.

“I’m happy with where I am right now,” he said. “I want to keep doing it and at some point transition into something else with the company that’s not performing, but not quite there yet.”

Until that point comes, Buese will continue to put his body through the work to bring the most exciting show possible to the fans.

“One of the challenges here is that we don’t have a ton of training time, so we really have to be, sort of efficient and intentional with how we’re gonna get people in because there’s not a lot of time to waste,” Buese said. “So we try to do it in a way that’s gonna set everybody up for success.”