The winning song, Euphoria by Loreen, is catchy, makes you want to dance, and is very much of today. What I noticed though was how its staging was very different from that of the other contestants.
The Eurovision show stage is always ginormous, even though rules state that there can only be six performers on it at any one time, and changover between acts can only take 45 seconds. That leaves very little options to create striking visual images, and often the stage looks really empty and staging is dull.
This year, Cyprus stood on some books, France wore a Jean Paul Gaultier dress with long pieces of fabric that flew up in the air (plus hot distracting gymnasts), the UK had a pair of dancers being all lyrical in the background, Russia a bread oven, and Ukraine some screens with images of a crowd of dancers (good way to circumvent the rules).
Bref, it's hard to make it work. So I thought it was very clever of Sweden to actually make the stage disappear in darkness and reduce it to a small space. Perfect for a singer and a male dancer not be lost in the emptiness. Dramatic lighting and close-up filming (rather than sweeping shots from afar) re-inforced that.
Here is a clip of Loreen's performance. Cool, off-beat choreography, for her especially. With that loose, silky jacket, I found it very Kate Bush in Wuthering Heights no? Love the walks from 00:55.
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