The best part of the Eurovision Song Contest yesterday was not a song, but one of the interval acts. “The Grey People,” choreographed by Fredrik “Benke” Rydman and Jennie Widegren, with music by Johan Liljedahl and Calle Rasmusson, is a treatment in dance of the European refugee crisis. It’s a triumph, riveting from beginning to end, and finally moving, as the 18 dancers wash anonymity off their faces and then join the audience.

Benke Rydman explained the theme of grey thus: “For us, it is a gray mass without identities that come to our countries. So you have to wash away the gray, which becomes a filter. Once we have removed the gray filter, you can see a human being.”