Rendez-vous (song)
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Belgium was represented at the
Eurovision Song Contest 1983 The Eurovision Song Contest 1983 was the 28th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It was held in Munich, West Germany, following the country's victory at the with the song "" by Nicole. Although this was Germany's first victory, 1983 was t ...
with the song "", composed by Walter Verdin, with lyrics by Paul Peyskens, and performed by the band
Pas de Deux In ballet, a ( French, literally "step of two") is a dance duet in which two dancers, typically a male and a female, perform ballet steps together. The ''pas de deux'' is characteristic of classical ballet and can be found in many well-known ...
. The Belgian participating broadcaster, Flemish (BRT), selected its entry through a national final. The 1983 national final has gone down as the most controversial in Belgian Eurovision history due to the extreme hostility shown by the audience towards Pas de Deux's victory.


Before Eurovision


''Eurosong 1983''

The selection consisted of three semi-finals, followed by the final on 19 March 1983. All the shows took place at the in
Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...
and were hosted by
Luc Appermont Luc Jozef Amelie Appermont (born 4 October 1949) is a Flemish television presenter. He started his career on Radio 2 as a radio announcer, he hosted the talent show ''Observatory''. From 1976 until 1990 he was the regular Belgian commentator fo ...
. Each show had live music from the BRT Big Band conducted by Freddy Sunder, and each artist had the option to use backing vocals provided by Bob Baelemans, Fred Beekmans, Luc Smets, and Linda Williams.


Competing entries

Flemish broadcaster (BRT) selected nine artists for ''Eurosong 1983''. Three women, three men, and three groups, with one from each category being an unknown artist, a known artist, and an artist with a unique style. However, it is unknown which of the artists fit into those groups, especially since all three groups were fairly unknown in Belgium at the time. Each of the nine artists competed with three songs.


Semi-finals

Three semi-finals were held to select the nine songs for the Belgian final. One semi-final was each dedicated to the male singers, female singers and groups. Each act performed their three candidate songs and an expert jury consisting of people from the BRT Light Music Service chose the best song from each act to go forward to the final.


Final

The national final was held on 19 March 1983 with nine songs competing. Voting was done by an 8-member jury of people from BRT, who each ranked their top four songs and awarded them 10, 7, 5 and 1 point(s). The jury was chaired by Tania Humblet and consisted of: Rita Goossens, Claude Blondeel, Paul De Wijngaart, Jan Schoukens, Johannes Thuy, Roel Van Bambost, Mike Verdrengh, and Zaki. Pas de Deux were the runaway winners, being placed first by six of the eight jury members.


Controversy

Before the jury had even started voting, they were disappointed by the quality of the songs and had even considered refusing to pick a winner. It is rumoured that they purposefully voted for "Rendez-vous", a very minimalistic song, in protest. When the votes were starting to be announced, the audience in the theatre appeared to be rooting for a
Bart Kaëll Bart Kaëll (born 2 August 1960 in Oudenaarde) is the stage name of Bart Marcel Emilienne Gyselinck, a Flemish singer and TV host. Career Kaëll studied music in Antwerp, after finishing school he landed a job as a singer and in 1982 he took pa ...
win, and as it became obvious midway through the voting that Pas de Deux were heading for a clear victory, pandemonium ensued, with each voting announcement being greeted with jeers, whistles and catcalls. Many walked out in disgust before the end of the transmission and Pas de Deux (who seemed to find the audience reaction amusing rather than upsetting) reprised their winning song to a half-empty house, having to compete against a chorus of jeers and booing. The jury members retreated to the bar in the Amerikaans Theater to hide from any aggressive Bart Kaëll fans. The results of the national final also caused some uproar across
Flanders Flanders ( or ; ) is the Dutch language, Dutch-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to culture, la ...
. Several readers' letters appear in newspapers and magazines, along with their own articles, complain about the results of the national final. Some say that the jury are 'deaf' or 'left-wing alternatives', or that Pas De Deux are 'fake Flemish who speak French at home'. The singer Sofie was also upset by the results of ''Eurosong 1983'' as she was tipped to win and was upset that the jury would choose to vote for a song out of protest when she really wanted to go to the Eurovision Song Contest. The BRT 2 radio channel also boycotts
Pas De Deux In ballet, a ( French, literally "step of two") is a dance duet in which two dancers, typically a male and a female, perform ballet steps together. The ''pas de deux'' is characteristic of classical ballet and can be found in many well-known ...
. The issue even got brought up in the
Flemish Parliament The Flemish Parliament (Dutch language, Dutch: , formerly called Flemish Council or ''Vlaamse Raad'') constitutes the legislature, legislative power in Flanders for matters which fall within the competence of Flanders, both as a geographic reg ...
. Jan Caudron, a member of the People's Union party, questioned the minister of culture,
Karel Poma Karel Emiel Hubert, Baron Poma (14 March 1920 – 27 December 2014) was a Belgium, Belgian liberal and politician for the Partij voor Vrijheid en Vooruitgang, PVV. He was a son of Carolus Poma, who was a lieutenant of the Antwerp fire brigade ...
, on why Flanders is being represented by a band with a French name and a song with a French title. Poma responds by saying that '' is a technical term in choreography, and that '' is a
loanword A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...
used in Dutch and several other languages.


At Eurovision

On the night of the final Pas de Deux performed 19th in the running order, following and preceding the eventual winner . At the close of the voting "" had received only 13 votes (8 from , 4 from the , and 1 from ), placing Belgium 18th of the 20 entries, ahead only of the nul-points Spanish and Turkish entries. The Belgian jury awarded its 12 points to .


Voting


References

{{Eurovision Song Contest 1983 Countries in the Eurovision Song Contest 1983
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