Noelle is a dancer and singer from Osijek. Her singles have managed to achieve the popularity among the Croatian radio listeners. She will be competing at the Croatian national selection Dora for the first time with the song “Baby, Baby”

Hello Noelle, congrats for being selected to take part at Dora 2024! You started your career as a dancer and your musical debut was with the song “Halo” in 2021. Can you tell us more about your musical beginnings and the decision to switch from being a dancer to musician?
Thank you very much. Music has always been an essential part of my life and believe me, I could not imagine my life without music. With my father, a professional musician, I was literally surrounded by music from birth. Various genres were played, from classical to heavy metal. However, somehow during puberty, the RnB sound slowly stood out and became my favorite choice. It somehow got under my skin, which I believe can be heard in all my songs.

My first entry into serious musical waters happened with the group Alibi. It was a short but pleasant episode in my life. They organized an audition to which I applied and to my surprise I passed. My favorite memory with the group Alibi is certainly the performance at the crowded Ban Jelačić Square, at the concert for Ana Rukavina. It remained in my special memory because it was my first public performance and right away at such a significant and big event.

After the breakup of the Alibi group, I returned to Osijek and started my dance studio Illusion. I realized very quickly that I could not dance and sing at the same time. I had to decide how and which way to go. The choice fell on dance, to which I devoted myself professionally and with 100% commitment. I think it was the right decision and the successes of my dance studio Illusion at numerous international competitions prove it. However, the desire for singing and a singing career was simmering in me all the time and it had to surface once. That finally happened with the song “Halo”.

“Halo ” made a huge success within the first week of its release by charting at #3 in the top 40 list, later on it became #1. How did that feel?
“Halo” was my first independent sign and immediately a big success and pleasant surprise. Not even in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that Halo would achieve that. Neither I, nor my writing team Hit Factory, had high expectations, even though we knew we had a great song. We hoped to enter the official top list and that was our main goal. For the first single of a new and until then completely unknown artist, no one could have expected such a good reception among listeners on more than 100 radio stations throughout the country. That this success was not accidental, the confirmation came from the world competition “International songwriting competition” (Nashville, USA), where “Halo” was selected for the semi-finals in a competition with more than 20,000 songs received from all over the world, mostly in English. For a song in the Croatian language, it is an exceptional success. Also, I must highlight the song “Bye Bye”, which spent five weeks in a row last year on the 1st place of the national chart HR TOP 40. It is another confirmation that my career is slowly going in the right direction. The performance at Dora is just another important step forward on that demanding path.

What made you decide to take part at this year’s edition of Dora?
It is interesting that due to numerous obligations related to my dance studio Illusion, this year I did not have Dora in my plans at all. I simply didn’t have enough free time to dedicate to creating songs. Quite by chance, some of my commitments were suddenly canceled at the same time that my authors Hit Factory also had free appointments, which we used to record the demos. The song “Baby Baby” immediately caught our ears and stood out from the rest. At first I was won over by its dance rhythm and the catchy melody of the chorus. I immediately felt that it was the right song with which I would like to present myself at Dora.

Can you tell us more about your entry “Baby, baby” and what does it mean to you?
“Baby, Baby” is an energetic song based on a great dance groove, which is very important to me as a dancer. In addition, the song has that retro dark electro pop dramatic vibe wrapped in top music production, which is due to my producer ZETZ. I love the nineties RnB sound. In a way it has become my trademark and that is what sets me apart from other Dora songs. I believe that the audience recognizes this and that “Baby Baby” will find its place in the hearts of Dora viewers and listeners on a large number of radio stations. So far, the reactions to the song are very good, even more than we expected. After the first week on the radio, the song entered the very top of the official HR TOP 40 chart and is currently the third most played song from Dora. That makes us very happy.

Given the fact that you are also a dancer can we expect some interesting choreography which you will perform at the stage of Dora 2024? Any hints of what can we expect from your performance?
Preparations for Dora started as soon as I found out that I was accepted. I immediately started thinking up the performance and scenography. In order to make my performance at Dora as attractive as possible, I planned to hire my friends, top dancers from abroad. Unfortunately, a few days ago I found out about the organizer’s decision that foreign nationals cannot be on stage. It destroyed all my plans and I am forced to start from the beginning. There is still a lot of time until Dora, so I believe that everything will be fine. What is certain and what I can promise is that there will be a lot of good dancing. The performance will certainly be energetic, dynamic and imaginative, as far as the circumstances allow. Singing and dancing at the same time is very demanding and difficult, so my choreography will partly have to be subordinated to the vocal performance, which is still the most important. In any case, I will try to present myself in the best possible light and of course, as always, do my best. I really don’t have any expectations and I’m happy to have the opportunity to present myself at Dora. The only thing that matters to me is that I perform to the best of my ability and provide the audience with a pleasant musical and stage experience that they will remember fondly.

You performed at many different stages including the one back in 2010 where you were part of Topstars project and as a dancer you accompanied Toni Cetinski, Franka Batelić, Indira and others how was that experience for you and do you maybe have some anecdote which happened during any of your performances which you could share with our readers?
I have a very fond memory of Topstars. It was a great pleasure to perform with so many Croatian great stars. The experience I gained on that occasion meant a lot to me in my future career. During my numerous performances, there were plenty of anecdotes. In my freshest memory, I had problems with head microphones, which would never listen to me and always tried to escape from my head, ha, ha. It’s a seemingly small problem, but it’s very inconvenient when you have to sing, dance the given choreography at the same time and fight with the microphone to get it back in the right position.

If you could chose a musician to record a duet with who would it be and which style of the song would the two of you perform?
There are many talented performers in various musical styles on the music scene today. I would especially like to point out Zsa Zsa and Matija Cvek. These two young singers are my first choice for recording a duet. I think that I could have a good collaboration with them because together we could sound really good regardless of the musical style. In this cooperation, each of us would give something of our own and unique.

Do you watch Eurovision regularly? Which song/performance is your favourite?
I have always followed the Eurovision and I can say that I am a fan. There were a lot of great songs at the Eurovision Song Contest, but from recent history, my favorite is Loreen and “Euphoria”. Of the songs from the further history of the Eurovision Song Contest, it is definitely ABBA and the song “Waterloo”.

What do you do when you are not dancing and singing? Any hobbies?
I have turned my hobbies into a business and a lifestyle, so it completely fulfills and makes me happy. I can really deal with it from 0-24. When I really want to get away from everything for a while, what I like to do is run..hahaha..maybe it sounds strange, but somehow it relaxes me completely. In addition, I always like to go to nature, watch a good movie or read a book. My favorite thing of all is spending quality time with my family.

What are your plans after Dora 2024?
After Dora, there will be work on new songs and the completion of my first album, the promotion of which should take place at the CMC festival in Vodice on June 7th and 8th. After that, various promotional activities await me and I hope numerous performances throughout the country. As I am a perfectionist by nature, I always insist that everything I do needs to be at a high level. Maybe that’s what sets me apart from the rest, but it’s also something that somehow slows me down in achieving my desires. I hope that some things will ease up a bit and that as Noelle I will soon start performing wherever I am invited, of course with the support of my „Illusion” dancers.

Thank you so much for your time Noelle. We wish you the best of luck at Dora 2024. Noelle will be opening the semi-final 1 which is scheduled for Thursday 22nd of February. You can listen to “Baby, Baby” below

Let as know how do you rate “Baby, baby” and leave your impressions about it in the comments and at our social media @escbubble