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© EBU
14 countries, 28 dancers
Tonight: Eurovision Dance Contest 2008
The show
Graham Norton and Claudia Winkleman will again present the show. Each couple will perform for two minutes before the professional jury will give its verdict. After all performances, the jury's top 10 countries will be given 48, 40, 32, 28, 24, 20, 16, 12, 8 and 4 points before the televoting starts. The countries will vote in typical Eurovision style giving 12, 10 and 8-1 points, which means that the jury has the weight of four countries voting.
Where to watch?
Apart from the participating countries, the contest will also be broadcast in the following countries: Albania, Armenia, Belarus, Cyprus, FYR Macedonia and Iceland. Of course, there will also be a webcast on eurovisiondance.tv here.
The line-up
These are the couples in running order along with the dance style(s) they have chosen and the song(s) they dance to.
- Sweden - Danny Saucedo & Jeanette Carlsson
Cha-cha
Hung up (Madonna) - Austria - Dorian Steidl & Nicole Kuntner
Slowfox & Jive
Pink Panther theme/Der Kommissar (Falco) - Denmark - Patrick Spiegelberg & Katja Svensson
Samba, Tango, Paso Doble & contemporary Jazz Dance
Twin Peaks theme/Igen og Igen (Nephew) - Azerbaijan - Eldar Dzhafarov & Anna Sazhina
Paso doble, Azeri folk dance, Rumba & Tango
The phantom of the opera (Andrew Lloyd Webber) - Ireland - Gavin O'Fearraigh & Dearbhla Lennon
Paso doble, Rumba & Irish Dance
The Mama song (Kila) - Finland - Mikko Ahti & Maria Lund
Tango
Traditional music - Netherlands - Thomas Berge & Roemjana de Haan
Rumba & Show Dance
Angels (Robbie Williams/cover version) - Lithuania - Saulius Skambinas & Karina Krysko
Rumba & Cha-cha
Teka teka skaisti saule (Traditional) - United Kingdom - Vincent Simone & Louisa Lytton
Paso doble, Tango & Jive
Paint it black (Lee Mead) - Russia - Alexander Litvinenko & Tatiana Navka
Cha-cha, Samba, Rumba, Paso Doble & Russian national dance
Koni priveredliviye (Vladimir Vysotsky) - Greece - Jason Roditis & Tonia Kosovich
Various Latin dances
Misirlou (Dick Dale)/Pump it (The Black Eyed Peas) - Portugal - João Tiago & Raquel Tavares
Rumba & Tango
Tirei a sorte (Fernando Martins) - Poland - Marcin Mroczek & Edyta Herbus
Rumba, Cha-cha & comtemporary Jazz Dance
Michael Jackson medley - Ukraine - Serhij Kostetskiy & Liliya Podkopaeva
Jive, Rock'n'Roll & Ukrainian national dance
Traditional music
Last year's Eurovision Dance Contest was won by Finland. Katja Koukkula and Jussi Väänänen convinced the televoters with a Rumba to All in love is fair by Carmen McRae and a Paso doble to The unforgiven by Apocalyptica.
Related polls
- 1st elimination show in the UK: Your favourite?
- 1st semi final in Iceland: Your favourite?
- Turkey decided: do you like Düm tek tek
- Albania decided: do you like Më mërr në ëndërr?
- Albanian selection concluded: did you like the Festivali i kenges 47?
- Which kind of national selection finds the best song for Eurovision?
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nice venue, great scotish audience, come on scotland lets show them how to do it
Live article can be found here: http://esctoday.com/news/read/12258
I'm really tired, It's 4:53 am in Australia and i've only had like 3 hours of sleep
Jonny
No, don't scrap it 
Go Danny and Jeanette !!
lets make it the western dance contest and freeze out the eastern bloc votes
please people vote greece,portugal,poland or lithuania..or even UK.!!DO NOT VOTE RUSSIA,AZERBAIJAN and UKRAINE...
good luck to all the dancers tonight... God I wish if my country would join too...maybe once....
Probably Azerbaijan and Greece will get good results because they are participating with two professional dancers. That should be a big advantage. They should especially get many points from the juries.
I still don't understand why the EDC officials haven't insisted on a change of at least one dancer of each couple. It is against the rules to start with two professional dancers and it is unfair to those countries which complied with the rules.
So I hope that those countries won't win because they are cheating.
I really haven't planned to watch it, but I must say I am now interested to see how the Austrian couple will dance to "Der Kommissar". This song and ballroom dancing is a strange combination in my opinion.
http://www.youtube.c(...)/watch?v=uGEEBUupVAw
http://www.youtube.c(...)/watch?v=6GmkjnL4EYw
Having just seen a promo video from the EBU for tonight's show, I actually realised who Louisa Lytton is and I'm surprised she is representing us purely because UK viewers will really know her, which is a contrast to the acts we normally send to the ESC. I think our choice of music is a very questionable representation of Britain but at the same time it's a very typical British kind of choice, so is the dancing I've seen from the dress rehearsals on another site. One thing I notice about British dancing couples on TV, at least in all EDC performances so far is that they are constantly, constantly spinning, twirling or rotating in some form, I hope we won't be doing that too much tonight.
I ADORED the James Bond/Diamonds Are Forever performance from us last year and think it should have got into the top 12 but there you go. I was wondering a lot what the UK would do when briefed with a freestyle dance performance that has a national flavour, and I thought James Bond truly was the perfect idea. I hope to see more real themes in EDC performances like this, and of course more countries taking part!
What I do like quite a lot is that the winner is much harder to call with dance, because it's quite hard NOT to make an effort with your performance or send an entry to poke fun at the contest.
Anyway, good luck to all countries tonight. I'm backing Portugal, Azerbaijan or Finland to win, and of course keeping my fingers crossed for the UK to get into the top 10 at least.
we all know that Ukraine or Russia will win.. not because they are the best but because they get all neighboruly and political voting/votes...
but my hope goes to sweden
sweden to win.. for sure!!
Last place for the Netherlands or the UK, easy to guess xD
I hope UK does not end up 2nd to last this year!
ESC should have a jury as well!
Good luck to all!!!
Ahhh really I'm looking forward to it now!! I havent seen any but Azerbaijan sounds really cool, I love phantom of the opera! hehehe
Jonny K
Yeah!!! 
Now you can send your votes in for Azerbaijan!!! Just imagine when the announcer says "and the UK gives 12 points to...Azerbaijan"
Jonny
YES !!!
@Angel_of-doubt:
I´m a big ESC-Fan, that´s why I´m here!
And by the way I´m longer here than you!!!
Great news, Jonny
i hope that azerbijan will win but i will watch armenia-turkey football match even if i know who will win ....lol..
of course turkey... armenia will be out ...
Russia - we love you from Azerbaijan!
easy to guess who the winner will be... Ukraine!
Oh and yes, Portugal & Ukraine are my favourites. I also like Azerbaijan & Ireland!
@Fernando 21
What are you doing at this page?
Jonny K
I'm sorry to hear about that 
but as you said, you can always see it again on the iplayer - I don't know where I would be without it! I almost missed the first semi-final of ESC because I was doing some research for a school project in the next county up from Cornwall!!!
And remember, if you are eating out tonight - do not eat any lamb! 
Jonny
Have a nice evening out!
Today is footbal world cup qualification round 1.
And I will watch the game Liechtenstein : Germany and the EDC in areplay tomorrow.
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