Alyosha rocks the stage for Ukraine

No props, no backing vocalists, no special effects - with an expressive covering a range of no less than four octaves, the Ukrainian representative in the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest, Alyosha, certainly had no problems taking the stage all alone. She rocked the arena with a powerful vocal performance of her dark and melancholic rock song.

During the performance, the stage was set in dark colours with red and white lights blinking in the background. A wind machine was used to make Alyosha's long blond hair fly. All in all, the rehearsal looked and sounded great on the screens and in the hall. Alyosha is still preparing a surprise to take place in the end of her performance, but it will be shown only in her second rehearsal, as the Head of the Ukrainian delegation exclusively revealed to Eurovision.tv.

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"Touch the hearts and make the world a better place"

In the Ukrainian press conference, both Alyosha and the other team members arrived in football jerseys, which carried the same motives as the official promo kit and a football presented later on by Alyosha. All those elements are part of an environmental campaign called Ecovision, which will be launched on 23rd May with a friendly football match in Oslo.

Protecting the environment is the key message of the Ukrainian entry Sweet People, as Alyosha confirmed during the press conference. She told the journalists that she wanted to "touch the hearts and make the world a better place" with her song. To underline this message, her official video clip was shot in the town of Pripyat, close to Chernobyl. This city was evacuated in the course of the Chernobyl disaster and has since then been empty due to high radiation.

"It was emotionally hard to stay in this dead city, but it was not dangerous to be there for a day. We just had to shoot one part of the clip in Kyiv, as it features a small child and we did not take her to Chernobyl. But everything in the video is real, nothing was shot in an artificial set," the director of the clip explained. You can watch the new video clip of Sweet People here:

When she was asked how the first rehearsal went, Alyosha said that everything went fine and she only lost her voice in the very end of the rehearsal due to a short night with little sleep, caused by a plane delay on the night of her arrival.

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Since childhood Alyosha demonstrated a love for music: since the 5th form she sang in a school choir and since the age of 15 she attended the Yunost studio. When she became 18, Alyosha dared for major changes in her life. She moved to Kyiv and got enrolled to the Kyiv National University of Culture and Art, Faculty of Pop Vocal. At the same time she opened her own recording studio together with some friends. Alyosha is the author of many hits for popular singers. She worked at Fabrika Zvezd (Star Factory) as a vocal teacher, back-vocalist, sound producer, author and composer. She collaborated with Potap & Nastia Kamenskih, Natasha Mogilevskaya, Irina Bilyk, Alina Grosu and Ani Lorak. In 2008 Alyosha signed a contract with the production centre Catapult Music and in the same year, she had a huge radio hit with the song Sneg. Her song Sweet People should be an appeal for environmental protection - Alyosha's Mission Website gives more information on her campaign.