🇲🇹 That Eurovision Review: Sparkles and Sass for Sarah Bonnici in her first rehearsal

Today the rehearsals for Eurovision 2024 continue in Malmö. Countries rehearsing on Day 3 include Malta, Albania, Greece, Switzerland, Czechia, Austria, Denmark, and Armenia. The first to rehearse today is Malta’s Sarah Bonnici.

Sarah Bonnici’s first rehearsal

The first to take to the Eurovision 2024 stage at Malmö Arena in Malmö was Malta’s Sarah Bonnici. Sarah Bonnici will be competing in this year’s competition with her entry “Loop” following her win at the Malta Eurovision Song Contest.

Following Sarah Bonnici’s first rehearsal a clip of what went on was posted on the official TikTok account of the Eurovision Song Contest. The clip showed her before and after she took to the Eurovision stage for the first time, as well as giving us some insight into how well her first rehearsal went.

What did we learn about Sarah Bonnici’s staging?

Sarah is wearing a sparkly silver jumpsuit, surrounded by four male dancers. The all-important dance break remains largely the same from the national final, just polished up in places. She will also use the LED cubes as part of her staging, alongside fireworks in the bridge of “Loop” and at the end of the song.

What we thought of Sarah Bonnici’s first rehearsal

Rory have his thoughts on Malta’s first rehearsal, which you can see here:

Who is Sarah Bonnici

Sarah Bonnici is a 25 year old singer from Gozo in Malta. Since 2009, from a young age Sarah has been involved in the music industry. Sarah has been trying to get to Eurovision since 2009, when she entered the “Malta Junior Eurovision Song Contest” with “The Mambo Song”. In the competition, Sarah finished fourth. Later in 2010, Sarah tried to represent her nation in Junior Eurovision again, and while again she did not win the national final, she did win a chance to become a backing dancer for the eventual entry.

As Sarah entered her teenage years, she participated in singing competitions all over Europe in countries such as Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary. Sarah was also successful in a lot of these competitions. In 2018 Sarah also participated in the Maltese version of The X Factor. A few years later in 2022, Sarah competed in the adult version of the Malta Eurovision Song Contest, with her song “Heaven”. “Heaven” finished twelfth in the final.

Her Eurovision song for 2024, “Loop”, is written by John Emil Johansson, Kevin Lee, Sebastian Pritchard-James, Leire Gotxi Angel, Matthew James Borg, Michael Joe Cini, Joy Deb, Linnea Deb, Ale Zabala, as well as input from Sarah herself.

Malta’s Eurovision Journey

Malta made its Eurovision debut in 1971, with Joe Grech performing “Marija I-Maltija” (Maria the Maltese Lass), finishing 18th with 52 points. Malta did not participate in Eurovision from 1975 until 1991. That year they returned with the song “Could It Be” by Paul Giordimaina and Georgina, finishing 12th with 32 points. Since then, Malta has been at every Eurovision and finished in the top 10 an impressive 12 times. Their best result so far is second place, which they’ve achieved twice. The first time was in 2002, when Ira Losco sang “7th Wonder,” and the second time in 2005 with Chiara’s “Angel.”

Malta’s most recent Eurovision entry was The Busker, singing his song “Dance (Our Own Party)”. Performing during the first semi-final in Liverpool, the band scored 3 points from the televote, earning 15th place and therefore, not qualifying for the final.

What do you think of “Loop”? Are you excited to see Sarah Bonnici perform on stage next week? Let us know your thoughts! Also, be sure to follow “That Eurovision Site” on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok as we prepare for Eurovision 2024!

News Source: That Eurovision Site / Eurovision.tv

Photo Credit: Corinne Cumming / EBU