Blog Post 2

 In 2015, the Eurovision Song Contest experienced a chilling but energetic song from Latvia’s “Love Injected,” performed by Aminata Savadogo, or Aminata. This song does not say much about Latvia, but more about Aminata and how she used her experiences to create different perspectives and meanings of her song. Aminata’s performance had little all-around aspects of the song, but she specialized in certain areas like staging, where she incorporated significance in lighting, her costume, color use, and imagery, and her own social traits, where she used her ethnic identities to possibly bring back her cultural dances. The song speaks a lot about love but having a different approach of the song could the audience to thinking the song means something the exact opposite. The lighting and color use of the song brings a perspective of Aminata including national identity, which could contribute an important reason to why the song did very well. Overall, this performance was created to show an interesting moral of the song as well as a culture showcase in very indirect ways to the audience. In this second blog post, I will be diving deep into Aminata’s own “Love Injected” for the country Latvia. 

When first watching this song, it is inventible to notice the abundance of the color red. Starting off with Aminata’s costume, we see that her dress is fully covered in a bright red color. In addition, the song begins with red colors sparkling on the floor, along with red colors flashing around the stage, although they appear fainter than many of the other red objects and lights. Throughout the whole song, the colors in the background never change, as they stick with the majority of red, and some white lights. After watching Aminata’s song several times, a certain perspective claims the color red demonstrates the concept of love. Not only does the color demonstrate it, but the lyrics do too. Throughout the song, Aminata talks about someone who inserts a warm feeling of affection into her, shown with the lines “You care, You animate, You guard me bare, Bring up the heart rate.” (Aminata - Latvia - Vienna, 2015) Even though Aminata claimed she wrote this song because she drew “inspiration from [her] own relationships [her] own thoughts on love,” (Van Ee, 2016) like many singers, she changed a few factors of her motivation to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest. Even though this song reflects on her past relationships, it is not shown in the performance as she is mainly speaking to a 2nd person pronoun. She could possibly just be talking to a lover as if any listener would put themselves into her shoes, as explained by the quotes that contain “you.” (Aminata - Latvia - Vienna, 2015) Aminata could also be talking to God, as she says “I’m safe, Into your hands.” (Aminata - Latvia - Vienna, 2015) Part of the performance’s lighting can also support that argument, with the moving, white spotlights displaying clouds with god rays (sunbeams) shining through them. Speaking of lights, they also play a big role in the performance in making the song attract more attention. In the stages of the song, there are two main colors that are shown, which are white and red. In the beginning of the song, there are few lights that make little movements, but are still bright and visible to the audience. But as the song progresses from the beginning, to the chorus, and finally to the bridge, more lights, and the movement of the lights, appear, reflecting the change in energy within the song and its lyrics. 

While easy signs like the song title, lyrics, and the bright lights, point to red signifying love, that same color could also represent blood, as the title “Love Injected” could inform the audience that love is injected into our bodies, which are filled with blood. The colors of the Latvian flag are both white and maroon, where maroon is a darker shade of red, which also adds to why the decided lights in the performance were those specific colors, but more importantly, white represents the white sheet used to cover a Latvian chief’s dead body, and the red symbolizes the blood from the chief that was stained on the white sheet. Keep in mind that the color red is a distinctive color in itself, as it can cause reactions of positivity, like love, sex, etc., but it can also cause reactions of negativity, like blood, fire, and others (Kuniecki, Pilarczyk, & Wichary, 2015). These two different reactions contribute to the patriotic personality that Latvia possess, as well as from the brutal history of Latvia’s past with the ruling of Russia and the Soviet Union. The connection between the lights, the color of red, and Latvia’s national flag demonstrate how Aminata incorporates Latvia’s national identity. Remember, the key aspects of national identity include the practices of a nation’s own unique culture, rituals, and individual language. An example of a popular practice that displays Latvia’s national identity within the country’s borders are the practices of various religions, and we see that through some of the imagery in the performance. In small spans of time, the background screen would show white patterns that represented religious images. For example, at the 20 second mark of the performance, we notice that behind the singer there are patterned images in the background. These patterns could be identified as church cathedral windows, with its old-fashioned quilt squared glass. The church cathedral windows are important to notice as Roman Catholic happens to be the most well-known, and practiced, religion in Latvia, and Aminata having an image like that in her performance that has a deep connection with her country’s national identity makes the Latvian audience listen with more meaning. The red, flashing sunbursts behind the singer also displays the image of a Monstrance, an image that is well-known in the Roman Catholic religion. 

Even though Aminata believes she is primarily a Latvian, she also comes from additional ethnicities of African and Russian. That being said, I have not found any information on why she decided to sing in English. Although, there is some interesting insight when it comes to the body language and movement of Aminata during the performance. In between the chorus and the bridge of the song, she begins dancing to a part of the song that plays new instruments. These various instruments create sounds that could resemble from her African roots, and the dance movements could very well come from the same demographic as well. This small but significant part of the performance demonstrates the concept of Essentialism as Aminata, like Catherine Baker’s article Wild Dances and Dying Wolves says, “involves the construction of a national tradition.” (Baker, 2008) In this event, folklore is being passed as the customs of Aminata’s ancestors could have possibly passed on to her generation. For some who believe that Aminata’s mid-song dance was not essentialism but cultural appropriation, the fact that Aminata is part African and has a diverse background makes it so she is not mocking or a stealing custom from another minority culture. 

Aminata Savadogo’s “Love Injected” was a unique performance and was nothing short of spectacular. The high votes for this song showed that audience and the Eurovision Song Contest truly appreciated Latvia’s 2015 masterpiece. From the brilliant staging that included bright lights that reflect the energy of the performance and the song’s lyrics, to a unique, vibrant costume that easily caught the eyes of the crowd, to the utilization of the colors red and white to create deep connections with national identity and the meaning of the song, and finally to the possible instruments and dance movements that resembles some of Aminata’s culture, made the performance outstanding and one for the books. All of these aspects demonstrate how Aminata uses her own life and cultural experience to make a deep, meaningful, and compelling performance. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited 

Kuniecki, M., Pilarczyk, J., & Wichary, S. (2015, March 31). The color RED attracts attention in an emotional context. An ERP study. Retrieved February 26, 2021, from https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00212/full 

Aminata - Latvia - Vienna 2015. (2015). Retrieved February 26, 2021, from https://eurovision.tv/participant/aminata 

Baker, C. (2008, July 17). Wild Dances and Dying Wolves: Simulation, Essentialization, and National Identity at the Eurovision Song Contest. Retrieved February 26, 2021, from http://web.b.ebscohost.com.proxy.seattleu.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=45240764-7ec7-4718-abe7-f5accf3d964d%40pdc-v-sessmgr03 

Van Ee, D. (2016, January 11). Latvia: Aminata's song was not meant for Eurovision. Retrieved February 26, 2021, from https://www.escdaily.com/latvia-aminatas-song-wasnt-ment-for-eurovision/ 

Aminata Love Injected (Latvia) - LIVE at Eurovision 2015 Grand Final. (2015, May 23). Retrieved February 26, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-usdXbeGHi8&feature=emb_logo