Martina Barta has taken to the stage in Kyiv to rehearse her 2017 Eurovision entry, “My Turn”. This is Martina’s first time in the Exhibition Centre; she and her delegation will be checking the sound, lighting and prop positioning. Camera angles will also be tested. This is the first time we’ll get to see her staging. After the rehearsal, Martina and her team will enter the viewing room where they will watch back the performance and make any changes they see fit.The Grand Final of the 62nd Eurovision Song Contest will take place on May 13th in the International Exhibition Centre of Kyiv, Ukraine. Forty-two artists will take to the stage over three nights to perform their contributions for the contest, fighting to become the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 2017. Over the next week, all of the artists will have the chance to rehearse on stage and make any last minute changes to their performance before the live broadcasts. Today, nine more countries will rehearse for the first time.
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12:35 CET // Today, the second day of rehearsals for the 62nd edition of the Eurovision Song Contest take place in Kyiv, Ukraine. Greece, Poland, Moldova and Iceland performed this morning. Now, the Czech Republic, Cyprus and Armenia will follow. After a second short break, Slovenia and Latvia will rehearse later this afternoon. Once Latvia has finished on stage, the team in the arena will break for an evening meal before beginning lighting tests. The presenters will rehearse during this time, as will interval acts. All rehearsals are followed by makeup consultations, a chance to view the performance in the ‘Viewing Room’ to make changes, and a press conference. Press conferences will take place 2h20m after the end of the on-stage rehearsal, lasting twenty minutes. All artists will spend six hours in the building. The first to perform this afternoon will be the Czech Republic at 12:40 BST / 13:40 CET / 14:40 local time.
Czech Republic: First Rehearsal
Written by Samuel
12:42 CET // Martina Barta has taken to the stage in Kyiv to rehearse her 2017 Eurovision entry, “My Turn”. This is Martina’s first time in the Exhibition Centre; she and her delegation will be checking the sound, lighting and prop positioning. Camera angles will also be tested. This is the first time we’ll get to see her staging. After the rehearsal, Martina and her team will enter the viewing room where they will watch back the performance and make any changes they see fit.
12:51 CET // Technical problems with the Czech rehearsal caused Martina’s visual to be out of sync with the audio. Martina wore a shiny all-in-one suit for the rehearsal, likely to be her outfit for the semi-final. The performance started with Martina sat on a bench, before an orange beam appeared that Martina appeared to walk along – after the introduction of the orange beam, the performance visual-audio link went out of sync. The technical problems continued for the rest of the rehearsal. Later in the performance, both the floor and back screen displayed and ice scene, before the people from the video appeared on stage at the very end of the performance.
12:56 CET // About the Czech Republic: Following on from her country’s first final last year in Stockholm, Martina Barta will be hoping to replicate Gabriela’s feat next month. The talented Jazz performers have travelled across Europe promoting her entry ahead of May, from Riga to Madrid. Now it’s her turn to take to the stage in Kyiv.
13:06 CET // The Czech Republic’s lighting is mostly purple, the actors from the video stand to the right-hand side of the stage, shot so that Martina is shown still singing in the background.Clips from the official video make up the display on the LED back screens.
Cyprus: First Rehearsal
Written by Anthony
13:30 CET // Bit all over the place, dancers and singers on one leg trying to show weightlessness like “Gravity”. Tries some LED floor graphics. Hovig is joined by two dancers.
13:35 CET // By the end of the performance Hovig is laying down on the floor. Trying to be like Belgium 2015 but not pulling it off.
13:45 CET // This going to be a matter of keeping balance for Cyprus.
Armenia: First Rehearsal
Written by Samuel
14:01 CET // Artsvik has taken to the stage in Kyiv to rehearse her 2017 Eurovision entry, “Fly With Me”. This is Artsvik’s first time in the Exhibition Centre; she and her delegation will be checking the sound, lighting and prop positioning. Camera angles will also be tested. This is the first time we’ll get to see her staging. After the rehearsal, Artsvik and her team will enter the viewing room where they will watch back the performance and make any changes they see fit.
14:10 CET // Artvsik is joined on stage by two backing dancers, complicated and intricate choreography. Looks very interesting, this is the third performance that Sacha Jean-Baptiste has choreographed this year.
14:30 CET // This is the sort of performance that we’ve come to expect from Armenia, solid different and eye catching. Starts off alone, joined by two dancers all dressed in black, pink lighting, interesting camera shots. Vocals are good for now, what you’d expect.
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About the Eurovision Song Contest 2017
The Eurovision Song Contest 2017 will be the 62nd edition of the contest. It is to take place in the International Exhibition Centre in Kyiv, Ukraine. This is following the Ukrainian victory at the 2016 contest, in which Jamala won with the song “1944”, which was performed in Crimean Tatar and English. This is the second time that the contest will be held in Kyiv, the first being in 2005. The contest will consist of two semi-finals on the 9th and 11th of May, and the Grand Final on 13th May 2017.
[tw-accordion class=””] [tw-accordion-section title=”Eurovision: How the Results Are Generated”] The winner will be selected in part by public voting on the night, and in part by a professional jury the day before. At last year’s contest in Stockholm, a new voting system (similar to that of Melodifestivalen) was introduced in which the televote and jury vote were split in order to create a more tense atmosphere and exciting end to the show. In previous years, the spokespersons from across Europe would reveal their nation’s top ten songs, announced from 1 point up to 7, followed by the famous 8,10 and 12 points. These results were the combined opinion of the voting public and professional jury. Each country’s points would be combined to reach a final result. Now, however, the spokespersons only reveal the top ten of the national jury, leaving the public vote until the end of the show. The public votes are assigned points from 1-8,10 and 12, before being added together to create a ‘pot’ of results. The public vote is now announced collectively awarding anywhere from ‘nil points’ to a maximum of 504 points, a total of 2436 points will be awarded by the public in May, as will 2436 points from the jury. The highest possible score any country could receive is 1008 points, on the basis that every country’s public vote and jury vote awarded the same nation 12 points.[/tw-accordion-section] [/tw-accordion]
How You Can Follow This Year’s Contest
Over the next two weeks we’ll be bringing you live blogs from all of the rehearsals at this year’s contest, kicking off at 09:00 CET this morning, with Robin Bengtsson from Sweden. Live blogs will keep you up to date with all of the rehearsals, the staging and the first impressions from Kyiv.
We’ll bring you up to date news from all of the latest goings on at the contest, expect all the details about the spokespersons, artists and the host city itself.
On May 7 our live commentary of the opening ceremony will return as well, with a number of our writers guiding you through the artists, songs and what to expect from the shows.
This year also sees Eurovoix joining forces with escXtra to bring you XtraVoix. XtraVoix is a daily podcast featuring writers from both sites who couldn’t make it out to Ukraine for the contest, we’ll give you our immediate thoughts on all the goings on.
To get the most out of our coverage of this year’s contest in Ukraine, make sure to follow us on all of our social media platforms. We’ll be running some special contests to win one-off prizes from some of these artists, so you need to pay close attention.
- Like us on Facebook
- Get all of the news straight to you Twitter feed by following Eurovoix
- Check out snippets of the goings on in Kyiv and more unique content on Twitter by following Eurovoix Moments
- Who doesn’t love a nice picture, we’ll be posting summaries of the news and ourselves in Kyiv on Instagram
