The Serbian act and song was chosen on March 2nd through their process "Pesma za Evroviziju". There were two semi-finals of 14 songs each with eight qualifying from each one. During the semis and the final, the qualifiers and eventual winner was determined by using a 50-50 mix of televoting and jury score. The Serbian act for Malmö is Teya Dora performing the song "Ramonda".
Teodora Pavlovska was born in 1992 in Bor, which at that time was in FR Yugoslavia. After studying in the capital of Serbia, Belgrade, she received a scholarship to study at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. After graduating she stayed in America, working as a songwriter. She returned to her homeland in 2018 writing songs for other Serbian artists as well as making her debut record "Da na meni je", released in July 2019. Her big breakthrough came last year with her song "Džanum". In Serbia, this gained fame for being recorded for the TV series "Južni vetar: Na granici" However the song then gained momentum worldwide as it became the protest anthem for the Belgrade school shooting and was then used on many of the accompanying videos on youtube and TikTok. The single peaked at number 4 on the Spotify's Top Songs Global chart, becoming only the third Serbian artist to have over a million monthly listeners (the first two being Eurovision competitors Konstrakta and Luke Black).
This song is a very gentle and emotional ballad with lots of harmonies and Balkan qualities. The backdrop has a dreamlike quality, soaring through the clouds. This is also reflected on the floor which floods with smoke during the song. Teya Dora is sat on a rock type feature at the back of the stage from which she starts then moves off later in the song, She is wearing a black-grey outfit with slightly wet hair. The whole set up looks a little bedraggled and possibly needs some refining. The song begins with two verses in quick succession although neither are lengthy. The pre-chorus builds up to the chorus which has a very ethereal quality. After a short break, the pre-chorus is revived and then the chorus continues until the end. The song ends with Teya Dora back on the rock singing a short outro while a stylised purple flower is shown on the back wall. Teya is alone on stage but the camera work is clever and she never looks engulfed by, or lonely on, the stage.
The ramonda is a flower and is an important flower in Serbian culture. It is also known as the "phoenix flower” due to its ability to flower again in atrocious conditions. This flower became a symbol to the Serbians during First World War and has a similar importance/resonance as British people would have to the poppy. The song has a solid grounding in Serbian culture but I am not sure this message gets through at all to the non-Serbian speakers at home. Luckily they are in a semi-final with other ex-Yugoslav nation that might understand the symbolisms more than most. The chorus is very ear-catching and memorable but is does sound like somebody mumbling along rather than having actual meaning. The whole staging is rather minimal and I think Teya Dora could do more physically and gesturally to get through the meaning of the words. Alternatively, there could be scope for dancers on stage or projected on the backdrop. This is a nice enough song which definitely stands out against so many up-tempo entries but this doesn't necessarily mean people will vote for it.
ARTIST - Teya Dora
SONG - Ramonda
WRITING/PRODUCTION CREDITS - Luka Jovanović, Andrijano Kadović, Teodora Pavlovska
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