o m a n a   v i d e o

Omana, as people interested in me know, is the title of my first album. There is something really magnetic in this song. I don’t know whether it is in the text, which is an ancient spell for love, or in the music, which I wrote to this magic, but many of my acquaintances and people I do not know like Omana. The strangest thing is that for about ten years now, ever since I created this song, I have been willing to make a clip for it but for different reasons this was not realized. It seems that at that time this song was a bit ahead of its time. The famous ethnic sound, which has now fascinated the whole world, sounded rather non-standard in 1993. Ivan Lechev and I made a new arrangement, I included “Omana” in my new album “Terra Incognita” and wanted it to be the first clip from this album. Besides, I had a screenplay and the costumes were ready but for some incomprehensible will of fate I did not shoot the clip.

And so, a few months after the appearance of my new album I started working with a new PR – Svetla Russeva from A.B.A. Listening to the album, she also wondered how it came that there was no clip for Omana. She offered that Ivan Lechev and I made a remix of the arrangement and that we made a clip together with the producer Vasil Stefanov. One of the funniest things was when we came together with Vasko Stefanov to Svetla’s office in order to think over the idea of the clip and she asked that there were no animalistic elements in this clip. (The truth is that I have almost no clip without animals.) We agreed and started thinking. Vasko and his wife Stefka called me a few days later and offered to me two versions: the one included dancing and fires and the other – chasing a man with dogs. And naturally the chasing with dogs was the idea of the woman. At first I adopted the first version and started looking for a sponsor. I found a sponsor, Vinprom Peshtera; we approved a budget and were about to start when a big sum of money was asked from us for the scenery, which was far more than the already approved budget. Then Stefka told me to pass a night and think of the version with the dogs. I did that and decided that in fact this was the more original version. Now the dogs were a problem. Stefka suggested that the dogs were Irish wolfhounds. I phoned the biggest specialist in dogs and horses breeds, the businessman Todor Gergov, who owns the most expensive horse in Bulgaria, as well as lots of exotic breeds of dogs. I told him of the idea for the clip and he said that he could not find two wolfhounds but that he could personally give me two Neapolitan mastiffs. The producer and I chose my colleague Ivan Radoev for the role of the chased man. The dogs were transported from Plovdiv and we started work. It was very exciting and interesting: the location shooting and the studio shooting, where I assumed the role of a contemporary witch, surrounded by traps for dreams, voodoo dolls and brooms. As for the dogs, they were great. The male one – Doggy weighed only 80 kilos because he was still young, only a year old but when he became two years old he would be 120 – 130 kg. And thanks god, because even as an 80 kg dog he could have pulled out my arm. Yet, both dogs obeyed me and by the middle of the shooting of the clip they already felt obliged to protect me and the people who took care of them made a remark to the members of the team not to make jerky movements around me because the mastiffs were already glaring and protecting me. I am very pleased with the work of the whole team, with the make up by Kiril Cholakov and with the whole organization of the shooting.