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Eurovision 2023: Czechia’s Second Rehearsal!

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Next up for their Second Rehearsal is Czechia, represented by Vesna with the song “My Sister’s Crown”.

Who are Vesna?

Vesna is a female folk band consisted by six members and based in Czech Republic. The six members of the group are Patricie Fuxová (frontwoman), Bára Šůstková, Olesya Ochepovská, Markéta Vedralová, Tereza Čepková and Tanita Yankovová.

In 2016, the band’s frontwoman wated to create an all-female band that would celebrate feminity and Slavic sisterhood. In 2018, the band released their first studio album, Pátá bohyně. The album won the Discovery of the Year award at the Czech music ceremony Ceny Anděl 2018. During the pandemic, the band began to work on a second studio album called Anima.

On January, the band was revealed as one of the six contestants in the Czech National Selection ESCZ 2023. When the voting results were announced, the band won 10,584 votes, winning by a margin of 6,367 votes, thus becoming the representative of the Czech Republic for the contest.

The Rehearsal

Unfortunately this year, accredited journalists don’t get the chance to watch the first and second rehearsals, so we only get the information and content that the organizers officially release to the public.

As we already know, Vesna are performing in matching pink pantsuits. The six members of the band perform a super-polished dance routine, and the whole three minutes feels really cohesive and well put together, with bags of female empowerment energy. In this rehearsal, all the group changed their hair. There’s some complex hair-ography in opening verse, and their plaits have got much longer and heavier. This staging is more effective.

 

Czechia Second Rehearsal 1

Sarah Louise Bennett / EBU

Czechia Second Rehearsal 2

Sarah Louise Bennett / EBU

Below you can watch a small clip from the Czech second rehearsal, once it’s published on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XASeTePlkQw

The Dress Rehearsal for Czechia and the rest of Semi Final 1 will be held on the 8th of May.

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Stay tuned at EurovisionFun for all the latest developments regarding Czechia’s entry in Eurovision 2023!

Source: eurovision.tv

 

Australia: Listen to Voyager’s cover of My Sister’s Crown!

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Voyager, the representatives of Australia in Eurovision 2023, shared a video on social media platforms, in which they are covering My Sister’s Crown by Vesna, the Czech entry for this year’s Eurovision Song Contest

https://www.tiktok.com/@voyagerau/video/7228127330508541186?embed_source=121331973%2C120811592%2C120810756%3Bnull%3Bembed_share&refer=embed&referer_url=eurovisionfun.com%2F2023%2F05%2F%25ce%25b1%25cf%2585%25cf%2583%25cf%2584%25cf%2581%25ce%25b1%25ce%25bb%25ce%25af%25ce%25b1-%25ce%25b1%25ce%25ba%25ce%25bf%25cf%258d%25cf%2583%25cf%2584%25ce%25b5-%25cf%2584%25ce%25bf%25cf%2585%25cf%2582-voyager-%25ce%25bd%25ce%25b1-%25ce%25b4%25ce%25b9%25ce%25b1%25cf%2583%25ce%25ba%25ce%25b5%25cf%2585%25ce%25ac%25ce%25b6%2F&referer_video_id=7228127330508541186

Eurovision 2023 is music-genre and language barrier free and nothing precludes an Australian rock band of covering a song sung in many Slavic languages, such as Ukrainian, Czech and Bulgarian. Such an interesting promo strategy used by Eurovision 2023 participants!

Voyager with their song Promise participates in the 2nd Semifinal on May 11, performing 16th. Their first technical rehearsal is scheduled for Tuesday 2/5.

https://youtu.be/aqtu2GspT80

You can also watch the reaction of EurovisionFun on Promise below:

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Stay tuned on EurovisionFun for all Eurovision 2023 news!

Poland: The Polish Eurovision Party 2023 is today!

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Today, for the second year in a row, the Polish Eurovision Party 2023 will take place in Warsaw. The hosts of the evening will be Poli Genova (Bulgaria 2011 & 2016) and Konrad Zemlik (the organizer of the event).

At this year’s Polish pre-party, twenty-five artists will appear, who are participating in this year’s Eurovision or have participated in the past.

The Eurovision 2023 entrants who will perform tonight are:

  • Albina & Familija Kelmendi – Albania
  • Alika – Estonia
  • Diljá – Iceland
  • Joker Out – Slovenia
  • Let 3 – Croatia
  • Mae Muller – United Kingdom
  • Monika Linkytė – Lithuania
  • Pasha Parfeni – Moldova
  • Piqued Jacks – San Marino
  • Reiley – Denmark
  • Sudden Lights – Latvia
  • The Busker – Malta
  • Vesna – Czechia
  • Wild Youth – Ireland

The remaining sixteen artists who will accompany this year’s participants are:

  • Anne-Marie David – Winner of Eurovision 1973 with Luxembourg
  • Eye Cue – North Macedonia 2018
  • Felivers – Tu bije serce Europy 2023 (Polish National Final)
  • Filip Baloš – Pesma za Evroviziju ’23 (Serbian National Final)
  • Gromee – Poland 2018
  • Inis Neziri – Festivali i Këngës 56 & 59 (Albanian National Final)
  • Krystian Ochman – Poland 2022
  • Kuba Szmajkowski – Tu bije serce Europy 2022 & 2023
  • Lindsay Dracass – United Kingdom 2001
  • Melovin – Ukraine 2018
  • Oceana – Unser Song für Dänemark
  • Poli Genova – Bulgaria 2011 & 2016
  • Senhit – San Marino 2011, 2020 & 2021
  • Slavko – Montenegro 2017
  • Sunstroke Project – Moldova 2010, 2017
  • Viki Gabor – Winner of Junior Eurovision 2019 with Poland

 

Stay tuned EurovisionFun for all the news regarding Eurovision!

Czechia: Vesna’s creative team behind the staging has been revealed!

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ESCZ revealed today, on Instagram, all the names of the final team who are going to be in charge of Vesna’s staging in Liverpool.

VESNA have already started their preparations for their performance on Liverpool’s stage and the team behind the staging consists of a variety of talented artists. Among others, Matyáš Vorda is going to be the visual director and the LED content creator, while Vít Bělohradský is going to be the stage director, as he was last year as well. Both of them have already worked with a number of Czech artists of Eurovision, like We Are Domi, Benny Cristo and Lake Malawi.

Furthermore, Bára Juránková and Zizoe Veselá are going to be in charge of the creative direction and the costume ideas for the performance, while the latter is also the choreographer.

Moreover, ESCZ also mentioned:

We can’t wait for you to see our visually stunning and captivating performance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y78qgDlzAM

Remember that Czechia is on the second half of the first semi-final on Tuesday 9th.

Stay tuned to Eurovisionfun for even more regarding Czechia’s participation in the Eurovision Song Contest 2023!

Czech Republic: With Vesna and “My sister’s crown” in Eurovision 2023!

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The ESCZ 2023, the national final that the Czech public broadcaster hosted on the 30th of January concluded tonight by announcing the winner, which is Vesna with the song “My sister’s crown“!

After a week of voting, viewers both in Czech Republic and around the world crowned Vesna as the winner of the show. You can see below the final ranking of all five entries.

The band is performing a song which sends a strong message of solidarity and support to Ukraine and goes against Putin’s propaganda regarding the “non-existence” of the Ukrainian nation. You can read more about its message at this article we wrote a few days ago regarding this entry.

Participants & format

Five acts participated in ESCZ 2023:

  1. Maella – “Flood”
  2. Pam Rabbit – “Ghosting”
  3. Markéta Irglová – “Happy”
  4. Vesna – “My Sister’s crown”
  5. RODAN – “Introvert party club”

The winner of the show was solely determined by a public vote, 70% of the voting of the international public and 30% of the voting of the Czech public.

You can listen the Czech entry for Eurovision 2023 below:

Enjoy Matamis Apostolis, Bogiannos Apostolos and Mantounaris Konstantinos from Eurovisionfun in a delightful video, with detailed commentary on Czech Republic’s next participation, for 2023!

What do you think about the Czech entry for Eurovision 2023? Tell us in the comments!

Czech Republic: With a history lesson and a response to Putin’s “Russian world” at Eurovision 2023?

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An interesting and pleasant surprise the Czech Republic was preparing us for its national final, through which they will choose the song that will represent the country at Eurovision 2023. Among the candidate entries we find My Sister’s Crown by the band Vesna, a song that in addition to its solidarity and support for Ukraine, it is the musical response to the ahistorical “Russian World” of Putin and his propaganda, according to which the Ukrainian nation does not even exist, since in fact they are Russians.

As you will see in the video clip, all the pieces of the puzzle fit together perfectly, so that the message is resounding and understood by everyone, even by those who may not have the historical background to understand it immediately.

Vesna is a person of Slavic mythology who could be said to be very close to Persephone of Greek mythology. In other words, she is also identified with spring, the fertility and fruitfulness of the earth. Vesna also means spring in many Slavic languages… The group consists of people from various slavic countries, like Ukraine, Bulgaria, Russia and of course Czech Republic.

The video clip starts with a narration of a few seconds. We are in a Slavic kingdom, where everything flows with love and everyone is united. But all this ends and dark clouds cover “Slavia” and the times of prosperity are simply forgotten… You obviously understand the comparison with today and everything that is happening between two nations that a few years ago were very close, of course we are referring to the Russians and the Ukrainians.

The song has lyrics in four languages. English, Czech, Ukrainian and Bulgarian, wanting to include the languages of the whole Slavic family (central, eastern and southern Europe).

We won’t say much more about the video clip, since the allegories of the bad things that have been happening in Ukraine for a year since the invasion of Russia are very cleverly and figuratively used in an artistic action that keeps you glued to the screen.

What we will comment is the verse that is repeated several times in the song, in different languages:

My beautiful sister, the crown is yours! 

 

This verse summarizes the entire message of this anti-war song. From a simple cry for the end of this atrocity that is happening in our neighborhood, it becomes, a history lesson, a response to Pan-Russianism, to the ideology of the “Russian World” that Putin is trying to impose on all Slavs.

Ukraine and Russia claim the cultural, but also political heritage of the state of the Rus, an empire of about 900 AD, through which Christianity, culture and letters were transmitted to all modern Slavic peoples. The capital of this state and the most important center was Kyiv. Both Ukraine and Russia (and Belarus secondarily) claim the Rus heritage and their achievements as cultural ancestors.

But Vesna sings in My Sister’s Crown, that this crown is yours and no one will take it from you, our beautiful sister, clearly taking a position in this historical controversy, on which the ideology of the Ukrainian national identity has been based.

The video clip of the song was released a while ago and already the Czech Republic is among the favorites to win the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest.

The clear message of My Sister’s Crown did not go unnoticed, as in just four hours after its release it was blocked from YouTube in Russia and Belarus, as Vesna informed via their Instagram account.

You can watch My Sister’s Crown here:

A participation that, if selected, will keep us properly occupied in Liverpool!

What did you think of the song? tell us in the comments below!

Stay tuned to Eurovisionfun!