SLOVENIA

The Slovenian Final was on February 24th at the RTVSLO TV Studios in Ljubljana, hosted by Vid Valic & Raiven. Before the final, there was a semi-final where the long list of 16 was cut in half. The winner was chosen by televoting (50%) & 6 juries (50%). The winner was Lea Sirk wih the song “Hvala, Ne!” (No,thank you!)

Lea is joined by 4 dancers. They are all dressed quite darkly although Lea's outfit is not at all flattering. The stage is very dimly lit in a kind of blueish tinge which means you can see the outlines of people quite easily but not faces and details, unless the camera moves in for close up. The floor of the studio flickers in different ways with moving geometric lines and flashes of blue and pink emphasising the speed and beat of the music. Lea also has light pink hair which ties the colour scheme all together.

The song is an electronic pop song in Slovene. Not being in English, the song relies a lot on the rhythms and the visual elements of the song to keep you interested. The song starts with the dancers doing some armography before cutting to Lea. The setup of the performance is quite traditional with Lea in the centre with the dancers around her. During points of the second verse the dancers have white picture frames The main hook of this song is the very minimalistic chorus which is very memorable and had a repetitive dance routine. The ending is quite clever at Lea knocks over each dancer saying “Ne” to each one at a slightly different pitch mimicking the winding down of a toy

This was possibly the most commercial sounding song of the bunch and looked quite slick. It is also nice that they have sent a song in Slovene as  this adds to the mysterious and slightly aloof vibe of the song. My main issues are with the presentation. I think the choreography is very predictable and that the dancers are too over the top during the chorus. It needs to be much more stylised, uniform and much more precise. I would also like to see Lea dressed in something much more fitted to make her silhouette shand out against the dark lighting. Also there are backing vocals on the track but no extra singers on stage. Unless she can find dancers who sing she may need to rethink parts of the show. This is a decent starting point but needs a lot of work – it’s good but nowhere near right yet.


ARTIST –  Lea Sirk
SONG – Hvala, ne (No thank you)
MUSIC - Lea Sirk, Tomy DeClerque
LYRICS - Lea Sirk Tomy DeClerque