In the early hours of this morning - Natalia Gordienko along side the self-titled "dream team" of Philipp Kirkorov, Dimitris Kontopoulos and Sharon Vaughn debuted her Eurovision entry for 2021 'Sugar'. The team put together a livestreamed event from Crave Theatre in Moscow, Russia. Gordienko is to perform in first half of Semi Final 2 on May 20, 2021.
The show was...interesting, featuring a couple hours of Kirkorov chatting, a small cabaret show and Gordienko performing a medley of Eurovision hits including: 'Hold Me', 'You Are The Only One', 'Work Your Magic' and 'My Number One'. The whole event took around three hours.
'Sugar' is right up Gordienko's ally alley - the video clip offers plenty of opportunity for her to show of her dance skills and the song was met with positive reception on twitter. There is a particular sweet twist at the end of the clip which will certainly be meme-worthy for the rest of the season.
Gordienko was internally selected and confirmed to return for Moldova on January 26, 2021. Last year Gordienko won her ticket to represent Moldova when she stunned the stage at the Moldovan National Final O melodie pentru Europa with her entry 'Prision'. Her 2020 attempt was also penned by familiar faces to Eurovision: Dimitris Kontopoulos, Philipp Kirkorov & Sharon Vaughn.
Moldova has participated in Eurovision since 2005 with 2021 marking their 17th entry. For a small nation Moldova has claimed good success with Zdob și Zdub finishing sixth on debut in 2005. The country also reached the top ten with Natalia Barbu (2007) and DoReDoS (2018), finishing tenth both times. In total, Moldova has reached the final ten times. A great qualification rate.
You can listen to Gordienko's entry song and others competing at Eurovision 2021 via the Aussievision playlist on Spotify: