Yesterday was a huge first day in the Eurovision arena, with the first 10 artists taking to the stage for the first rehearsals. Today we’ve got the next round of artists from the first semi-final, and it features some of the contest favourites! Here’s the action from Day 2!
Cyprus
With one of the biggest pop bangers of this year’s contest, Eleni Foureira also had the pressure of staging this song in a manner that suits the energy of the song, and there’s no doubt that she did that. It was easily the most impressive rehearsal of the day, and the press centre was in awe of what they’ve created on stage.
Visuals:
Wow, this is up there with Finland with the most epic staging of the first semi-final. The difference between the two is the use of props in Finland, whereas Cyprus is definitely stronger on choreography.
The stage is lit with pink, purple and red lighting, but this is only after the entrance of Eleni, with is dramatic and dark. We see her walk from the darkness into the light, where the sassy choreography truly begins.
She is joined by four backing dancers who are also vocalists, and the choreography is one of the strongest of the day. Think hair flips, and a lot of popping and dropping. Where Croatia was sexy, Cyprus is definitely more on the provocative side of things, but I think everyone was expecting that from her.
The other significant feature to note is the use of projections, like many of the other acts this year. For Cyprus, they’ve got bursts of coloured smoke on the edges of the screen, and then we’ve also got the projection of fire, which in the first run through seemed to come out from her backside, although this was lowered in the next run through. In the next run through we saw a different fire projection which didn’t seem to address the strangeness of the projection. Also in the last run through we saw the pyro, and of course, there was fire. It creates the spectacular finish that her voice fails to do, since we don’t get any improvisational ending or big notes different to anything from the studio version.
Costuming:
We finally get some sequins at Eurovision, and trust Cyprus to deliver. Eleni is wearing a sequined bodysuit in colours of burnt yellow, orange and red, with a transparent part of the bodysuit in the centre of her body. In terms of hair and makeup, we get the signature Eleni curls which aid her hair flipping, and her makeup although obvious, was definitely toned down to more natural to let the costume speak for itself. It definitely worked for the song.
Vocals:
This is definitely not at the same level of the studio version, but it really isn’t too far off. When Eleni is left to her own devices to sing alone, there are some shaky moments, but for the most part she is on key. The backing singers definitely add a lot to this, which is impressive considering the extensive choreography. The only thing that we see other artists do but Eleni not is improvising on the song and elevating certain notes in the song, especially towards the ending. It follows the same path as the studio version, which is predictable, but what would have really pushed this to the next level would be to see this vocally push boundaries.
