Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest 2021

With ERT opting to continue their cooperation with 2020 artist Stefania for 2021, it was announced that the same team responsible for the songwriting and the choreography of the 2020 entry would also be used for the 2021 contest, and that the song would be selected internally.^[13] On 14 December 2020, ERT revealed the names of the people who would comprise the jury panel involved with the selection of the song. The jury consisted of music composer and ERT board member Dimitris Papadimitriou, and music producers Petros Adam and Yiannis Petridis.^[14] All three were members of the previous year's jury panel. As it was announced, the jury panel planned to select the Greek entry before the start of 2021, while the song would not be released before March 2021.^[14]

Songwriters Dimitris Kontopoulos, the production team Arcade and Sharon Vaughn,^[15] submitted at least four potential entries to ERT for consideration.^[16][14] On 18 December 2020, an Instagram post by Stefania on the official account of the Eurovision Song Contest revealed the name of one of the song candidates, "Adrenaline".^[17][18] Three weeks later on 7 January 2021, "Last Dance" was announced as the title of selected song,^[15][19] with its release set for 10 March.^[20]

To promote the entry, a music video was released on 10 March, ahead of the song's general release later that evening.^[21] It aired during a dedicated show on ERT's over-the-top media service ERTFLIX.^[22] Directed by Kostas Karydas, the video was filmed in Athens and features elements of Greek mythology.^[23]

Stefania was also interviewed by Greece's celebrity magazine Gala alongside her uncle, actor Yannis Stankoglou,^[24] and was featured in a photoshoot in Hello! Greece, talking about her upcoming performance to both magazines.^[22] In early May, she appeared on ERT1's show Our Best Easter where she performed an acoustic version of "Last Dance" accompanied by piano.^[25] The acoustic version was later performed on the 9 May "Eurovision Night" episode of the Greek version of Your Face Sounds Familiar, where she sang alongside Dimitris Kontopoulos on the piano.^[26]

The Eurovision Song Contest 2021 took place at Rotterdam Ahoy in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and consisted of two semi-finals held on the respective dates of 18 and 20 May, and the final on 22 May 2021.^[27] According to Eurovision rules, all nations with the exceptions of the host country and the "Big Five" (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom) are required to qualify from one of two semi-finals in order to compete for the final; the top ten countries from each semi-final progress to the final. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) split up the competing countries into six different pots based on voting patterns from previous contests as determined by the contest's televoting partner Digame.^[28] The semi-final allocation draw held for the Eurovision Song Contest 2020 on 28 January 2020 was used for the 2021 contest; Greece was placed into the second semi-final, to be held on 20 May 2021, and was scheduled to perform in the first half of the show.^[29] Once all the competing songs for the 2021 contest had been released, the running order for the semi-finals was decided by the shows' producers rather than through another draw, so that similar songs were not placed next to each other. Greece was set to perform fourth, following the entry from Czech Republic and preceding the entry from Austria.^[30] The two semi-finals and the final were televised in Greece on ERT with commentary by Maria Kozakou and Giorgos Kapoutzidis.^[31]

Fokas Evangelinos served as the artistic director for the entry, responsible for its stage presence.^[32] The performance featured Stefania in purple amongst a green screen which removed the bodies of her four dancers leaving them as empty white suits, an arrangement which created a marked difference between what television and online viewers saw versus the limited live audience.^[33] The dancers included George Papadopoulos (stage director for the Greek entry at the 2014 Contest),^[34] Nikos Koukakis, Markos Giakoumoglou and Costas Pavlopoulos.^[35] Stefania's outfit was designed by Greek fashion designer Vrettos Vrettakos, who had previously worked with Beyoncé as well as Eurovision alumni Eleni Foureira and Helena Paparizou.^[24] Technical rehearsals for the performance took place the week prior to the contest, on 10 and 13 May 2021.^[36]

The second semi-final was held on 20 May and Greece was the ninth country of the ten to be announced as having qualified for the final.^[37] It was later revealed that the entry placed sixth in the semi-final, receiving a total of 184 points.^[38] Soon after, the EBU posted the running order for the final, placing Greece in position 10, following United Kingdom and preceding Switzerland.^[39] At the close of voting for the final, held on 22 May, "Last Dance" placed 10th in the field of 26, receiving 170 points.^[40]

Voting during the three shows involved each country awarding two sets of points from 1-8, 10 and 12: one from their professional jury and the other from televoting.^[41] The exact composition of the professional jury, and the results of each country's jury and televoting were released after the final; the individual results from each jury member were also released in an anonymised form.^[42][43] Greece's jury consisted of Adam Tsarouchis, Athena Konstantinou, Fotis Sergoulopoulos, Ioannis Vasilopoulos, and Xenia Ghali.^[42][43] In the second semi-final, Greece placed 6th with a total of 184 points, thus qualifying for the final. The performance received 80 televoting points, which included the maximum 12 awarded by Moldova. The jury points added to 104, including 12 from France and Poland.^[44] In the final, Greece placed 10th with 170 points, with two sets of 12 points from Cyprus (jury and televote), one set each from Georgia (televote) and France (jury). Over the course of the contest, Greece awarded both sets of 12 points from its jury and televote respectively to Moldova in the second semi-final and to Cyprus in the final.^[38][40] Manolis Gkinis served as Greece's spokesperson for the voting portion of the final, announcing the country's jury vote. At 10 years old, the actor from the ERT series Ta kalytera mas chronia became the youngest spokesperson in contest history to this point.^[45] Below is a breakdown of points awarded to Greece in the second semi-final, as well as by the country in the final.

The following members comprised the Greek jury:^[42][43]

• Xenia Ghali
• Athena Konstantinou
• Fotis Sergoulopoulos [el]
• Adam Tsarouchis [el]
• Ioannis Vasilopoulos

Detailed voting results from Greece (Semi-final 2)^[38]

R/O	Country	Jury							Televote
		Juror A	Juror B	Juror C	Juror D	Juror E	Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	San Marino	3	3	7	2	2	2	10	9	2
02	Estonia	9	9	4	9	13	10	1	13
03	Czech Republic	15	5	14	11	3	7	4	15
04	Greece
05	Austria	14	8	15	12	4	13		14
06	Poland	7	7	6	10	9	9	2	16
07	Moldova	2	1	1	1	1	1	12	1	12
08	Iceland	1	13	10	6	10	4	7	6	5
09	Serbia	5	12	5	7	15	8	3	7	4
10	Georgia	8	10	9	13	14	14		11
11	Albania	10	6	3	8	7	5	6	2	10
12	Portugal	6	4	8	14	8	6	5	8	3
13	Bulgaria	4	2	2	5	5	3	8	5	6
14	Finland	11	16	16	15	16	16		3	8
15	Latvia	12	14	12	3	12	12		12
16	Switzerland	13	11	13	4	6	11		4	7
17	Denmark	16	15	11	16	11	15		10	1

Detailed voting results from Greece (Final)^[40]

R/O	Country	Jury							Televote
		Juror A	Juror B	Juror C	Juror D	Juror E	Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Cyprus	3	3	1	2	1	1	12	1	12
02	Albania	12	11	12	9	10	17		4	7
03	Israel	9	21	21	3	19	15		22
04	Belgium	14	10	14	1	23	8	3	18
05	Russia	4	12	8	16	7	9	2	10	1
06	Malta	8	6	9	8	4	5	6	8	3
07	Portugal	17	19	2	21	24	16		19
08	Serbia	13	16	18	12	17	19		16
09	United Kingdom	23	23	15	22	21	24		24
10	Greece
11	Switzerland	11	15	3	17	16	14		7	4
12	Iceland	2	14	16	18	15	13		11
13	Spain	21	18	20	24	11	20		23
14	Moldova	5	5	6	4	3	2	10	21
15	Germany	24	25	24	19	22	25		20
16	Finland	19	17	19	25	18	22		5	6
17	Bulgaria	6	2	5	5	9	3	8	12
18	Lithuania	20	22	4	7	8	11		13
19	Ukraine	16	7	17	23	2	10	1	6	5
20	France	1	13	10	13	14	6	5	3	8
21	Azerbaijan	10	8	11	10	6	12		9	2
22	Norway	22	20	22	14	20	21		14
23	Netherlands	25	24	25	20	13	23		25
24	Italy	15	1	13	15	12	7	4	2	10
25	Sweden	18	9	23	11	25	18		15
26	San Marino	7	4	7	6	5	4	7	17