Morena, who is representing Malta at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest took the stage for the second time at noon on Sunday, for her second rehearsal at the Belgrade Arena. Following the first rehearsal, which took place the previous Tuesday, Morena spent about two to three hours daily practising her dance routine with her team.
The Irish Eurovision site Allkindsofeverything.ie reported that Morena quite rightly concentrates on singing and lets the four hunky dancers to do all the work, and they certainly work very hard in the three minutes – there are lots of folded arms, with high kicks, frantic jumping around and the whole thing is very well put together. Ireland will be represented by a puppet this year – Dustin The Turkey.
Morena is accompanied in Belgrade by her sister, Georgina Gauci, who is a soprano and Morena’s personal vocal coach.
On stage Morena is supported by the backing vocalist AnnaBelle Debono and four male backing vocalists and dancers. Philip Vella, composer of Vodka explained to us that, ‘the guys are also very good singers in their own right. They take part in several concerts and musicals in Sweden’. The choreography accompanying Vodka on stage is by Thomas Benstem, who will also be on stage as a backing vocalist and dancer. The other guys are Dan Gill, Markus Englund and Nicklas Berglund.
No hitches were encountered during both rehearsals. The outfits were tried for the very first time at the technical rehearsal of last Sunday. Black is the colour on stage. Morena wears a black corset which has mirrors on the sides and the front part. She is also wearing the custom-made boots with mirrors and a bracelet on her left arm. All accessories were custom made for the performance. The male dancers are all in black except for the shiny slings which they wear over their waistcoats. They are also wearing silver ties. The dancers hold LED torches which they use in the beginning and towards the end of the performance. AnnaBelle is set in the background wearing a black outfit. The change in choreography was also noted. This comes a few seconds after the first chorus. Instead of zig-zagging through the backing dancers, Morena has now taken a step forward and is doing a head-shake which is going down very well with the present fans and press.
During the press conference Morena carried a soft toy which she called “Vodka Vodka”. This was given to her by Eurovision singer Miriam Christine (1996). During the same press conference the backing dancers revealed that in the past they also worked with the Swedish pop-divas Carola and Nanne Gronvall.
The bookmakers are not rating the Maltese entry high this year. Vodka is stable at the 23rd place out of 43 entries. The chart is compiled by Oddschecker.com and includes odds by 19 leading bookmakers. Russia is still considered as a runaway winner, while Serbia, Armenia, Ukraine and Sweden complete the top five positions. However, things might change during the coming week.
Fans and the accredited press are rating Malta ninth in the second-semifinal. Only 10 entries will make it through to the finals from each of the two semi-finals. These will be joined by the BiG-4 nations: UK, Germany, Spain and France and the host country, Serbia, bringing the number up to 25 finalists.