Lithuania On Stage
Eurovision performances are notorious for being grand and quite messily presented. In the case of Lithuania, its performance in 2018 defies the stereotype and presents a cohesive, well-understood performance while its performance in 2017 acts as the stereotype states: messy, grand, and difficult to grasp.
“When We’re Old” was presented in 2018’s Eurovision Song Contest by Ieva Zasimauskaitė. The song tells a story with the overarching message of wanting continuity and eternity. Though Ieva had dedicated this song to her husband, it does not necessarily need to apply only to a significant other; it can be dedicated to lovers, family, friends, or any relationship that a person might be in. She expressed during the official press interview (wiwibloggs, 2018) that she kept her emotions very true to herself and what she personally felt every time she sang this song because her emotional vulnerability was the only way people were going to truly be moved and find something to relate to in the piece. Another way she moves people is by singing one of the last lines of her song (Eurovision), “Right from our very first kiss I knew it’ll end up like this”, in her native language of Lithuanian. She transitions from a global connection to a personal connection with her husband, and the camera helps to intensify the connection by zooming into the ring on the husband’s hand.
Not only was the song emotionally enhanced through the performer, but also by the staging of the production. Ieva and her production team wanted this song to leave the audience’s heartstrings tugged at. They wanted to give the audience an emotional impact, which was enhanced by the way the production team chose to design the stage. There were soft and warm yellow lights that were always faded in and out, rather than using abrupt lighting cuts and changes. All camera shots were comprised of slow pans or zooms and fade transitions between cuts in the camera angles. Every little element regarding the staging played a significant part in creating a coherent, unified feeling to the audience and viewers.
Contrary to the well-produced, cohesive performance of “When We’re Old,” “Rain of Revolution” by Fusedmarc was a very disconnected and difficult performance to understand. In a private interview with wiwibloggs (wiwibloggs, 2017), the band was asked what this song was about and what message they wanted to get across to the audience. They replied by saying that this song was one where a person could reevaluate themselves and discover “what made you YOU.” It was to be a representation of that person finding another part of themselves and having an “explosion [of emotion] in the heart” and having a sort of revolution within themselves. It could be questioned, however, if perhaps the band had meant revelation, rather than revolution because it seemed that they were talking a lot about people finding new things about themselves, as opposed to “a sudden, radical, or complete change” (Merriam-Webster). The only place where the word “revolution” might have sounded appropriate to the song was when they sing the line “Breaking the rational views and narrow limits”, but otherwise, it was difficult to find elements of revolution in a song that was supposed to be focused around the idea of revolution. Along the similar spectrum of lingual misunderstandings, the band is not the most proficient in English, which inhibited their ability to understand the questions of the press, as well as other interviewers. Despite their lack of English proficiency, they also tended to not use their translator very often, thus resulting in misunderstandings of the questions being asked and the provision of incorrect or inadequate answers to the questions being asked. Because of the large language barrier between the artists and the public, it was difficult to get any information regarding the song out of the artists themselves, leaving the interpretation and understanding of “Rain of Revolution” up to the people watching the performance.
Beyond the lingual disconnect, there was also a visual and auditory disconnect with the way the song was staged. There were many elements being used, but there was no overarching theme to tie them together. Arguably, only thing unifying the stage was the constant use of the color, red. According to the artists, the color red was to symbolize, as mentioned earlier, an “explosion [of emotion] in the heart” (wiwibloggs, 2017). Fusedmarc and their stage production team chose to visualize the “explosion [of emotion]” very literally in the ways they designed the LED visuals that were being projected. During the first chorus, they very literally made a heart that was seemed to be expelling something (perhaps the emotion) every time it beat. Later on, they designed a large, spinning, firework-like visual that seems to explode out of the singer and onto the floor and the back LED screen during the last chorus of the piece (which could be assumptively seen as the highlight of the whole piece because this is also when the lighting becomes more dramatic and chaotic). There were also so many different lighting transitions, techniques, and designs that also could be a probable reason that there was so much disconnect between the song and the staging. Perhaps if the stage production had been simplified, the lyrics properly delivered, and emotion been unified, Fusedmarc would have had much more success with this piece of music and had been able to make it to the finals.
In regard to the diversity within the two performances, there was not much to say. If anything, both songs were performed by white, Lithuanian people, but this also is relatively accurate to the racial diversity in the country. Perhaps the most memorable and obvious element of diversity was the superimposed images that were projected during the performance for “When We’re Old”. There was a variance in the people being projected: a South Asian family, old couples, young couples, and children. The large range of diversity in the superimposed images could be an implication that any person, regardless of age, race, or religion desire to have eternal love from those they have a relationship with. For “Rain of Revolution”, however, it was much harder to identify an element in the song or performance that implied a sort of diversity. Certain lyrics in the song like “Figuring out meaning of love/ Breaking the rational views and narrow limits” [sic] (Eurovision) could possibly imply support for the LGBT community in Lithuania, but it is too much of a stretch to go further in depth regarding it.
Lithuania has yet to host for Eurovision, yet it is always waiting and in preparation. Perhaps the extreme contrast in style of music, presentation, and overall performance that was presented between 2017 and 2018 was an experimental trial to see what worked and what didn’t. Clearly something did not click to viewers in 2017 (seeing that Lithuania was unable to make it to the live finals), but something worked in the performance of 2018 because Lithuania had placed 12th in the finals, one of its best results in the last decade. Hopefully after seeing two completely opposite performances that also received two completely opposite results, Lithuania will now understand what it might need to be even more successful for the next year.
References
revolution. 2019. In Merriam-Webster.com. Retrieved February 28, 2019, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/revolution.
Warring, Olivia (2018, May 11). Who is Ieva Zasimauskaitė? Meet Lithuania’s Eurovision Song Contest entrant. Metro. Retrieved from https://metro.co.uk/.
wiwibloggs. (2017, May 3). Fusedmarc (Lithuania) Interview @ Eurovision 2017 [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1KwVDojiXw.
wiwibloggs. (2017, May 5). Lithuania Press Conference – Fusedmarc “Rain of Revolution” Eurovision 2017 [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5q1W-vSbf16Q.
wiwibloggs. (2017, May 6). Lithuania Press Conference 2 – Fusedmarc “Rain of Revolution” Eurovision 2017 [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiAhr-FzJb50.
wiwibloggs. (2018, April 29). Lithuania Press Conference: Ieva Zasimauskaitė “When We’re Old” Eurovision 2018 [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8Y2i-gAGOuA.
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