+
Sign up for
The Upworthiest
Our top stories of the day delivered straight to your inbox.
upworthy

arts

Pets

Dog marionette freaks out real dogs with wholly believable dog movements

Can't blame pups for thinking he's real because this puppetry is WOW.

Lukasz Puczko/TikTok (used with permission)

Puppeteer Lukasz Puczko has incredible marionnette skills.

Humans have enjoyed the art of puppetry since ancient times, and like all arts, puppeteering has become more and more refined over the centuries. To see that evolution in action, look no further than the incredible skills of Polish puppeteer Lukasz Puczko.

Puczko's ability to mimic a dog's movements with with his dog marionette, Burek, is so impressive even real dogs are duped. In a TikTok video that's been viewed nearly 20 million times, Puczko is seen on a crowded street at an arts festival with Burek as he pounces around, wags his tail, lifts his ears and crouches into a playful stance just like a real dog would.

And it's so convincing, his real doggy counterpart doesn't seem to know what to do.

Puczko shared that Burek carries the scent of other dogs, so a little wind will quickly catch a real dog's attention. Then the "uncanny valley" experience begins, and you can almost hear the real dog saying, "That's not real. Wait, is it real? That can't be real. Or can it?"

Watch:

@aonsolniki

Burek - The Dog Marionette. Fully improvised show with unique type of marionette. Puppet has a smell from other dogs, what with a propper wind can bring a dog to Burek in seconds what randomly starts interaction. Body language allowed by handmade construction is the key here. Burek is not barking, but people around my shows are 😅 This puppet is working as well as a therapy dog for people who are affraid of dogs 💪 those are very random moments during a show on a street, but not that impossible to handle with this puppet. This is 7th generation of Burek, first has been made in 2009. (For licensing or usage, contact licensing@viralhog.com) st-Art Festival, Tegelen 2024, Totaal Theater. #dogs #puppet #street

Even the people who clearly know it's a puppet will reach down to scratch Burek's ears and chin and pet him as if he were real. It's incredible to witness.

@aonsolniki

Burek - The Dog Marionette. Fully improvised show with unique type of marionette. Puppet has a smell from other dogs, what with a propper wind can bring a dog to Burek in seconds what randomly starts interaction. Body language allowed by handmade construction is the key here. Burek is not barking, but people around my shows are 😅 This puppet is working as well as a therapy dog for people who are affraid of dogs 💪 those are very random moments during a show on a street, but not that impossible to handle with this puppet. This is 7th generation of Burek, first has been made in 2009 st-Art Festival 2024, Tegelen. Totaal Theater. #dogs #puppet #street

Puczko shared that Burek is often used as a therapy tool for people who are afraid of dogs. That makes perfect sense, since his movements are so similar to a real dog he can be used to demonstrate how dogs communicate through body language.

The encounters Puczko shares are fully improvised, which is all the more impressive. It's one thing to memorize a choreographed show with a marionette and another to have the movements down so intuitively that the puppeteer—or puppyteer, in this case—can interact so fluidly in the moment.

Here's Burek meeting other dogs during the holidays. The poor pups seem so confused at what they're seeing.

It's always a joy to watch someone who is a master of their craft, and Puczko's puppetry skills are just as entertaining as the dogs' reactions to them.

You can follow Lukasz Puczko on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook.

From Your Site Articles
dogs
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?"

From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web
arts
popular

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.

From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web
arts
Culture

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.

From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web
best of humanity
Trending Stories