00:00 Antwerp authorities had warned residents about two large, unpredictable dogs prowling the
00:06 neighborhood.
00:09 The Mexican hairless dog Xolo, named after the Aztec canine god, and his counterpart,
00:17 Bull Machon, an English bulldog with an outsized personality to match his immense proportions.
00:23 Four and a half meters long, three meters high, and weighing 877 kilos.
00:30 He's not beautiful, he's fat, he slobbers, he smokes a cigar, he does all kinds of things
00:35 that aren't appropriate, but deep down he's a real sweetheart.
00:41 The two characters were created by the French street theater company Royal de Luxe, founded
00:46 in 1979.
00:48 Since then, the group has staged around 1,500 shows the world over.
00:55 Their giant marionettes are usually built of cardboard and wood.
00:59 Each dog is operated by 29 handlers, called lilliputians, after the tiny fictional characters
01:06 who tie up the giant in the classic tale of Gulliver's Travels.
01:13 It's like on a boat.
01:14 One person pulls the line to move the feet.
01:16 The others control the mouth, the tongue, the eyes, and the ears.
01:20 And it all has to be coordinated.
01:25 To allow the lilliputians to concentrate on their work, it's forbidden to interfere or
01:30 speak with the team during the performance.
01:35 The teams work so closely with the marionettes that they end up loving their dog like you
01:39 love a person.
01:41 Their fascination with the creatures turns into real love.
01:45 And that fascination is clearly contagious.
01:49 During their stay in the Belgian port city, an estimated 760,000 people turned out to
01:54 catch a glimpse of the colossal canines.
01:58 It's magic basically.
01:59 It's beautiful the way they look so realistic and yet you see how they move and how it all
02:04 works.
02:05 I like the mechanics, how people control the dog.
02:08 It's quite interesting.
02:09 It was amazing.
02:10 A concept like this, they don't do it often enough.
02:15 The last time Royal Deluxe's founder Jean-Luc Coculte brought his giants to Antwerp was
02:20 in 2015.
02:22 It took quite a bit of preparation and organization for the city to be transformed into a playground
02:27 for the giants for three days.
02:29 Planning began months in advance.
02:32 For the performances of Cholot and Boulemachin, some bus stops even had to be moved.
02:39 The deputy mayor thinks the effort was well worth it.
02:45 We had like one million euro in our cultural budget for the giants to come to Antwerp,
02:50 but it's more worth than one million.
02:53 When you see the faces of the children, it's really amazing what it does with them, but
02:57 also the adults.
02:58 So we are really happy.
03:01 There's no doubt that Antwerp is already looking forward to the next visit of these impressive
03:06 giants.
03:06 [MUSIC PLAYING]
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