The meet and greet of the Greek delegation and Victor Vernicos with the representatives of the press took place at “Noel” on Thursday afternoon.
Of course, Konstantinos Rigos, who has taken over the artistic supervision of the Greek participation in Liverpool in May, was also present at the event.
The ballet director of the National Opera Ballet spoke exclusively to Euronews and George Mitropoulos, revealing details about Victor Vernicos’ performance on the Eurovision stage.
First, he spoke about their collaboration:
“Victor is 16 years old. He has written the music and the lyrics, he has sung the song. In that sense, he is an artist who has clearly signed up to what we are going to Eurovision. That means he has an opinion on it. The song has a whole world in itself. When I first heard it, I said well, how do we enter this world? Because it’s a kid’s world, in a song that he wrote when he was 14 and he’s got all this claustrophobia and at the same time this “What they say”, which is a slogan about how you go from inside yourself to something outside. So that’s basically what I want to make. I want to create an introverted world, where there’s ultimately an extroverted communication party, between him, the 16-year-old who is ‘New Age’ and us who are the recipients of this final event.”
But how easy is the collaboration between the director and the young musician, who has never been tested on stage before and has no similar experience?
“It’s a complicated process because he’s a young kid, but he has an opinion. He’s in his own time. He knows what’s going on around him. He knows what’s going on in music. He’s a very good musician himself. He doesn’t have the stage experience and that’s where I’m called upon to help him with that. To convey to him my views on performance, what he should do and how he should be on stage, what he should convey, how he should make his own feeling become ours. So it’s basically a process that I’m mainly in the role of a teacher at this stage – it’s something I’ve very rarely done and at the same time a director.”
The well-known choreographer also mentioned the way they work and how he approaches this particular song:
“We work very well together. He’s promised me that what we’re setting up, he’ll do it 1,000 times by the time we get to the stage. For me, the big bet is that he manages not to lose his temper on this big stage. Because even if you’re a professional singer, the first moment you go out there, I say that because I’ve had previous experiences, you get scared. The hard thing about this particular song is that it’s not a ballad, it’s not a dance, it’s middle tempo. It has its explosions, but it’s all restrained. So that’s the bet, which I have to make, through the visuals and through him, because there won’t be any others on stage. I have to conquer it through his performance. So I have to bring both the introversion and the extroversion of the song on stage. It’s a gamble and I’m glad I took it, because I’ve done a lot of different things and I have an experience with a lot of singers and with Eurovision. I think we’ll make it. Victor has something primary. Anyone who listens to the song smiles because you don’t expect a 16-year-old kid to have that voice, that maturity in the music and that maturity in the lyrics. So that might be the card we can play.”
Below you can see Victor performing “What They Say” live, for the first time in front of the audience:
Stay tuned to Eurovisionfun for all the news about the Greek participation in the Eurovision Song Contest 2023, in Liverpool!
Source: euronews.com
