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Armenia: Somersaults for Sirusho

12 May 2008 at 17:50 CEST

In the first rehearsal, Sirusho started her performance surrounded by three backing dancers, who were lying on the floor. Of course, they became more "active" afterwards and they showed several acrobatic moves while dancing around Sirusho. One of them even performed a somersault on stage! Sirusho performed in silver boots, but the dress that she will wear on the night of the Semi-Final was not yet shown to the public. All in all, the performance looked very energetic and it illustrated the oriental motives in the song very well.

Sirusho was chosen to represent Armenia in the First Semi-Final of the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest by an expert jury in an internal selection. However, her song was picked in a public national final by televoting out of four entries. The songs were all written by composers from Armenia, and Sirusho wrote the lyrics to all four songs herself. In the end, the public voted in favour of Qele Qele, a strong up-tempo song with a ballad-like beginning and ethnic influences from Armenian national music.

 

In the press conference, Sirusho was asked what the song title Qele Qele stands for. She explained that "Qele" means "Come on" in English, and that it fits the message of the song well. Furthermore, Sirusho claimed that she received most of her influences as an artist and musician her parents, who are well respected artists in Armenia. When the delegation was asked why they had not used pyrotechnical effects in their first rehearsal in spite of requesting and preparing them, the Head of the Armenian Delegation, Diana Mnatsakanyan, explained that the necessary paperwork could not be completed by the respective authorities in Belgrade in time.