Musician Alban Claudin shows off his performance and production skills with a great live cover version of the M.I.A. track Paper Planes. Though without the vocals, it could almost be called a cover of The Clash song Straight to Hell, which M.I.A. sampled heavily. His version of Doja Cat’s Paint the Town Black is wonderful too.
Most portraits are painted on canvas or paper. This skilled artist paints on the inside of glass bottles. The process doesn’t just require a steady hand and precision but the ability to think about images in reverse. While the results are impressive, this isn’t a unique talent – the practice of painting inside small snuff bottles dates back to the 17th century in China.
The Journey song Don’t Stop Believin’ is a true classic – and it wouldn’t have been anything without Steve Perry’s talents. NetMusic shows off just how good his singing was by stripping away most of the music and allowing us to hear Perry’s isolated vocals. Neil Schon’s guitar solo is also a treat.
Dancer Sandip Brahamin won Romania’s Got Talent’s originality prize for good reason. His dance style is unlike anything we’ve ever seen. His trademark move looks like something from a stop-motion animation as he spins his feet in a circle and shakes his head back and forth like a wind-up toy on speed.
Most cotton candy is produced by spinning heated sugar in a special appliance until it forms thin strands. But this talented candy maker shows how a traditional Chinese cotton candy can be made by spinning hot, caramelized sugar in the air and inserting a skewer of caramels in the middle to catch the candy floss.
Jack White says he can name any Beatles song after listening to it for just one second. In this clip posted to the musician’s YouTube channel, he proves he’s not lying. We got a few of the more recognizable ones right, but Jack knows their entire catalog.
We thought the only way to land a dart on a dartboard was to throw it through the air. This skilled “dartist” shows how it’s possible to place a dart right in the bullseye by tossing it into a vertical loop, where it spins around and hits the bullseye. If you have any doubt this was real, here’s the original How Ridiculous video.
Violinist Dmitry Rotkin lets his fingers do the talking in this brief pizzicato jazz improvisation, inspired by Duke Ellington’s It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing). His finger-plucked performances of Misirlou and his original composition, Mad Fingers Pizzicato, are incredible as well.
Doing push-ups and planks requires a good bit of upper body strength. Calisthenics athletes Andry Strong and Eryc Ortiz show off their power and control by performing a push-up without their legs on the ground and with Eric balanced on Andry’s neck. And then there’s this move.
Florian “Venom” Kohler is one of the world’s best pool trick shot artists. As he’s perfected his craft, he has developed over 10,000 tricks and techniques to make billiard balls do his bidding. WIRED met with Florian to demonstrate some of his wildly inventive trick shots. His mastery of ball physics is truly something to behold.
For the opening ceremonies of the 20th Letní Letná festival in Prague, 32 acrobats performed while hanging from a spinning truss suspended by a crane. Artists duo.extend were part of this display from Cirkus Cirkor’s Aquanauts, an amazing show that brings together acrobats, aerialists, and synchronized swimmers in a show combining water, air, and fire.
Musician Wendel Gama doesn’t just impersonate Michael Jackson’s look and dance moves, he’s got the voice to back it up. If you close your eyes and listen to his performances of Billie Jean, You Are Not Alone, and Remember the Time, you’d be hard-pressed to tell it isn’t The King of Pop reincarnated. He also does Tiny Tim.
If you asked us to stand up on a floating log, we’d faceplant in the water in about 2 seconds. But Tanner and Lyle from the Paul Bunyan Lumberjack Show have no such problem. Watch as they battle for supremacy and try to knock each other off the log at any cost. Tanner clearly had no qualms about splashing Lyle. Watch the full competition here.
Like that guy from the Police Academy movies, beatboxer J-COP has the amazing ability to imitate just about any sound. But that’s not the best part of his videos – it’s his hype team – a group of friends and breakdancers who celebrate each achievement with more enthusiam than the guys in a How Ridiculous video after they hit a perfect target. More here.
This talented performer shows off his multitasking skills by simultaneously playing his acoustic guitar while tap dancing. His unconventional flamenco performance has him strumming the fretboard while holding the guitar upright. Also, this man has some crazy long fingers.
Choreographer Sadeck Waff is known for his amazing synchronized tutting routines. Sadeck and the dance team Mega Unity performed this mind-blowing sequence for the 2021 finale of La France A Un Incroyable Talent. The performance starts at the 9:42 mark with the real magic happening in the top-down view. Here’s another amazing work by Sadeck.
Musician Will Wilde is an incredibly talented harmonica player. He’s especially adept at interpreting vocal and guitar solos from rock songs, including this jam from Pink Floyd’s The Great Gig in the Sky. His harmonica solos from Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven and Guns N’ Roses Sweet Child o’ Mine are equally compelling.
Say you need to cover a wall with cement. You could get on a ladder to reach the parts above your head, or you could do like this show-off from working on a house in Brazil, and simply toss trowels full of the stuff into place from the ground. His aim is spot-on, but we’re guessing his arm is sore at the end of the day.
Hittesh Patel’s unique combination of tutting, popping, and contortion sets him apart from other performers. In this clip, his hands become a bird, his body becomes geometric shapes, and he demonstrates control over his individual toes that we didn’t know was physically possible.
Beatbox artist Improver shows why he’s one of the world’s best with his Grand Beatbox Battle 2023 World League solo performance. His original track Dirty Planet is a hard-driving commentary on humanity’s gradual destruction of our planet. He also plays a mean accordion.
This self-proclaimed “little nerd robot” sure can dance. Bryan CHIBI Gaynor’s moves are more machine than human. This Robot Cannot Human has a knack for choreographing robotic dance moves to unlikely songs like Alice in Chains’ Them Bones, Tool’s Schism, and Weezer’s Island in the Sun. Find more of this robot’s creative videos on YouTube.
This performer shows off a traditional Middle Eastern dance that incorporates fire. But the dancer isn’t juggling or carrying flames; she’s wearing them along the hemline of her dress, creating a terrifying ring of fire as she spins. We sure hope the upper part of the dress is fireproof. There’s a similar fire dancing tradition in India.
When approaching a staircase with your bicycle, it’s best to dismount and walk it down. That is unless you know what you’re doing like freestyle cyclist Fabio Wibmer, who makes it look easy. And he did it backward while balancing on the front wheel. Or, you could just skip over the entire staircase.