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Pop Culture

14-yr-old's expressive, physics-defying 'Mad World' dance blows away AGT judges and fans

Her haunting performance is a must-see.

America's Got Talent/YouTube

Mariandrea Villegas has talent and showmanship beyond her years.

Dance is a unique art form in that the medium it utilizes is the human body itself. Simply through purposeful and graceful control of movement, dancers can express and evoke joy, sadness, fear, confusion—the whole range of human emotion. And when dancing is done well, it's utterly mesmerizing.

Such is the case with Mariandrea, a 14-year-old from Mexico who auditioned for America's Got Talent in July of 2023 and wowed both the judges and the audience with her dance performance. She has been dancing since she was 5, and as Simon Cowell pointed out, it's clear that she was born to do this.

After showing off her sparkling personality during the pre-performance interview, Mariandrea danced to a cover of Tears for Fears' "Mad World," personifying the song in her performance. But it wasn't just her intentional movement that reflected the emotional complexity of the ever-popular hit. Her facial expressions, ranging from subtle fear to a clown-like smile to genuine sorrow to angry defiance, change on a dime, adding an acting element to her routine that takes it to the next level.

Add in the incredible control she has of her body as it twists and turns and seems to defy gravity, both gracefully flowing and disturbingly contorting, and it's easy to see why she earned a standing ovation and enthusiastic praise from all four judges.

Watch:

For someone so young to have such a strong grasp of her craft is quite extraordinary, and people were wowed by her talent as well as her showmanship.

"I had to watch this more than once. Her smile, energy, and face reminds me of a young Natalie Portman. You can tell she is more than a dancer also, very intelligent, expressive, talented, yes acting too. Wow! Congratulations!" shared one commenter.

"This young lady has a very bright future ahead of her! The passion that she emanated while dancing was above and beyond what we have seen in half the dancers that are older than her... Can't wait to see what she does next!!!" wrote another.

"Stunned. I would have given her a golden buzzer. The sharpness, flexibility, timing, theatrics, and costume use. 10/10," shared another.

One commenter pointed out that her dance felt like a monologue, and another person called it "absolute art." Many people expressed disappointment that she didn't receive the Golden Buzzer, which would propel her immediately to the final round. But if her other performances are anything like this one, she's got a pretty decent chance of making it to the finals without it.


This article originally appeared on 9.18.23

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Culture

Kelly Clarkson and Ariana Grande's pop diva duel on Jimmy Fallon left people begging for more

@alex_abads/Twitter

Kelly Clarkson and Ariana Grande duked it out on Jimmy Fallon's 'The Tonight Show.'

There are pop stars, and then there are singers. While recording studio technology can make people sound like amazing singers, the proof is in their live performances.

Kelly Clarkson and Ariana Grande took it a whole step further on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon," delivering not only a jaw-dropping live performance but doing so in the form of revolving pop diva hits in an "impossible karaoke" showdown. In less than five minutes, they showed off their combined ability to nail pretty much anything, from imitating iconic singers' styles to belting out well-known songs with their own vocal stylings.

Watch this and try not to be impressed:

There's a reason Kelly Clarkson won the first season of "American Idol" and went on to become a multiplatinum recording artist. What's funny is seeing some people in the replies saying they didn't know she could sing like that. Yes. Yes she can. And she has since the beginning.

Check out this performance of Celine Dion's "I Surrender" during the first season of "American Idol." At this point, she was an amateur singer and her vocal chords were stressed after weeks of rehearsing and competing, and she still knocked it out of the park. Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson both said they'd put her in the same league as Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey and Celine Dion, and she's shown she deserves that classification over and over again since.

And Ariana Grande has made a name for herself for her ability to impersonate different singers while also sounding freaking amazing. Jimmy Fallon has had her on his show multiple times doing musical impressions. Check this one out from when she was just 21 years old. I mean, singing "The Wheels on the Bus" as Christina Aguilera? The woman can sing. Period.

So of course, having Kelly Clarkson and Ariana Grande singing together is a real treat. And they've gifted us with a delicious duet for the holiday season with a live performance of "Santa, Can't You Hear Me." Their voices complement one another so beautifully, with Grande's silvery sweetness and Clarkson's rich resonance. The amount of talent pouring forth from these ladies is simply unreal.

As Jimmy Fallon said, "How?"

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Videos

Photographer takes portraits of people on the street, then shows them how beautiful they are

Dino Serrao/Facebook

Dino Serrao believes there is beauty in every person and is on a mission to prove it.

Serrao is an Italian photographer who lives in Norway and travels the world to photograph ordinary people on the street. His portraits are awesome, but the video documentation of him taking people's portraits is even better. He shares the videos and photos on his various social media channels and has created quite a following.

For a taste of why, watch Serrao convince this elderly grandmother to let him take her picture:

So many of his videos offer a similar feeling, but each in their own way. And that's really the point. Each person has their own individuality that creates their own unique beauty.

He just stops people right where they are in the street and asks to take their picture. And the results are stunning.

Sometimes it's a musician he captures:

Watch this one of a woman with her dog:

A guard at the royal palace:

And just generally interesting people:


In his "About Me" section of his website, Serrao says, "Creating a great impact in this world means socializing with all cultures and traveling all over to connect with each other, in hearts and minds." That's exactly what we see him doing.

Keep up the beautiful work, Dino Serrao. You can follow him on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook.

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Wellness

A former ballerina with Alzheimer's hears 'Swan Lake' and bursts into dance in her wheelchair

Felipe Tristan/Twitter

Sometimes a video comes along that yanks us right us out of the frustrating fray or mundane monotony of the moment and reminds us of the miraculous gift that life truly is. This is one of those.

Marta Cinta González Saldaña was an accomplished ballerina when she was young. Now, in her waning years, she suffers from Alzheimer's. A viral video of González Saldaña shows how she reacts to hearing the music from Swan Lake—a ballet she had performed decades ago. Alternating scenes show her dancing from her wheelchair and a ballerina performing the dance on stage. (Some versions of the video have stated or implied that the young ballerina is González Saldaña herself. It's not.)

The contrast of the stage performance and her memories clearly bursting forth in her face and body movements is incredibly moving. It's amazing how music, dance, art—the universal language of humanity—can remain, even when other memories fade or get locked away.

Just watch, sound up:

Seriously though. Break out the tissues.

The video came about as part of a study being done by the Spanish organization "Music to Awaken," which studies how music impacts patients with dementia. Pepe Olmedo, a psychologist and director of the organization, told Brut that she was selected for the study because of her background as a dancer. "We searched for the songs she'd danced on when she was young," he said, "even songs where she was the prima ballerina. Luckily, we had writings of hers from the past where she recounted several songs. In the end, the day when we met her, she appeared sad, nervous at times, and we didn't know how effective this would be. But as she listened to 'Swan Lake'—that was the first song she listened to—she completely transformed, and it seems like part of her mind traveled to another moment of her life."

Olmedo pointed out that science has proven that some areas of the brain related to musical memory are less damaged by diseases such as Alzheimer's than other parts of the brain. "Our brain is wired to be receptive to music," he says, and "music is totally linked to emotions." It's the emotion that Olmedo says is important for people with dementia to feel to help connect them with the moments in their lives.

Ballerina with Alzheimer's Gets Back Memory of Her Swan Lake Dance Routinewww.youtube.com

Absolutely amazing. What a beautiful reminder of the magic of music and a hopeful study for people with loved ones who feel like they are slipping away. No matter how crazy our political chaos gets or how tedious our daily tasks feel, these examples of raw human beauty can help bring us back to what truly matters.

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