BELARUS

The Belarussian Final was held on January 22nd at BTRC Studio 600 Metrov in Minsk, hosted by Olga Ryzhikova & Teo. The winner, chosen by 100% televoting, was Ivan with the song “Help you fly”.

The song is what I would deem to be quite typical Belarussian fayre -  a mid tempo rock number with dance influences. It starts of moody and dark aad starts with an excerpt of the chorus which gets the song title in your head within seconds. The verses are a little bit non-descript and low but the chorus is very simple and repetitive and shows the upper range of Ivan’s voice. The staging of the song was really well done with choice angles and a great backdrop, however I feel this is very much a distraction away from Ivan’s stagecraft (or lack of).

Ivan, whose real name is Alexander Ivanov, is from Belarus but won the “Five Stars” competition in Russia back in 2014. He looks much older than his 21 years and this is mainly due to his long blonde hair. He reminds me of a hipster version of Marilyn who was a bit of a celebrity in the ‘80s. His personality comes across as ‘rocker’ yet his dress sense is more ‘rocking chair’. This area of the show will need serious revamping. What’s more, although a few backing sngers might be able to beef up the vocals more one thing the show doesn’t need is dancers.

The song itself isn’t bad. The transitions between verse and chorus are interesting and show different sides of his voice. However there is a big issue when it comes to the stage performance. Basically in the song’s performance in the Belarus final the song had a very domineering backdrop which needed lots of long wide shots or shots that would swoop in and out. There were very few lingering shots of Ivan himself. This is not because he looks odd or has something he doesn’t want the camera to see, I fear this is because his charisma and stagecraft is lacking. He just doesn’t know what to do with his body, he doesn’t know what to do with his face, he doesn't know what to do with his hands and doesn’t know how to connect with the camera.

All in all, I really like the flow of the song and like the odd chord changes in the chorus. It creeps into your head quickly and easily but Eurovision is much more a visual beast these days and this performance will not cut it. Yes, the backdrops are quite cool and had some clever camera angles but there will have to be a lot done to make Ivan a more interesting eyeful. The song *should* be good enough to qualify but the show, as is, is a definite no.

ARTIST - Ivan
SONG – Help you fly
MUSIC - Viktor Drobysh, Mary Susan Applegate
LYRICS - Viktor Drobysh, Mary Susan Applegate