The Slovakian pop star is a classically trained ballerina, so naturally, she brought a barre pole on Friday.

Photo by Madison Truscan for Dallas Observer

You could see it on various pieces of merch scattered throughout the jam-packed venue Friday night, a simple expression with vivid connotation: swaggerina. 

Those stuffed into the Echo Lounge and Music Hall for Adéla Jergova’s sold-out headlining debut inherently understood the viral phrase and how the 22-year-old Slovakian singer-songwriter and dancer standing on stage, sporting vibrantly pink hair, embodied that precise fusion of high and low. 

Call it grimy, hard-edged electropop delivered with the most graceful of pliés — Adéla, embracing the mononym, as did her dance-pop forebears Madonna, Britney and Gaga (all of whom were heard over the PA pre-show), gave a relentlessly athletic, hypersexual and startlingly vulnerable performance on Friday. 

Adéla showed us why she’s the prima ballerina of pop music.

Photo by Madison Truscan for Dallas Observer

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Adéla was back in Dallas just four months after opening for Demi Lovato at the American Airlines Center in May, a stone’s throw across I-35. This debut headlining run — christened as the Red Bottoms Tour — also comes on the heels of her first studio album, “PRIMA,” which dropped three weeks prior, to the day. 

The at-capacity crowd, many of whom were bewigged in equally loud fashion and sporting crop tops reading “The Baddest Bitches are in Dallas,” sang along at top volume to every song Adéla showcased over the course of her roughly 65-minute set, which featured nearly all of “PRIMA” (save for “Hitachi”) and multiple cuts from her 2025 EP, “The Provocateur.” 

Backed by a quartet of dancers, Adéla opened with the throbbing “KGB,” fairly screaming the chorus — “Call me the K-G-Biiiiiitch!” — and paced the stage like a caged tiger, flinging her tresses and striking poses. Every move she made elicited a frenzied roar from the crowd, phones held aloft as others mimicked her posturing. 

The same day Adéla came to Dallas, her viral hit, “Nicole Kidman,” hit its biggest streaming day ever on the Global Spotify chart.

Photo by Madison Truscan for Dallas Observer

The sound mix fairly obliterated Adéla’s voice — when it did intermittently slice through the murk and heft, it was a pleasurable blend of delicacy and intensity — but if anyone was bothered by the backing tracks’ heavy-handedness, it wasn’t evident. The first 15 minutes climaxed with “NastyDirtyGross,” which saw the entirety of the Echo Lounge jumping up and down, the floor fairly vibrating with motion. 

The swift pace didn’t leave much room for introspection, although Adéla did pause before one of her breakout tracks, “Ain’t in LA,” to reflect on her rapid ascent: “I moved to L.A. with the dream and the goal of becoming a pop star,” she said, as the audience shrieked its approval. “I quickly became tired of L.A. and the celebrity culture … there’s so many cool people everywhere. … The baddest bitches are not just in L.A., they’re also in Dallas.” 

To drive home the point, she crowned Dylan, a fan from the audience as the night’s “Baddest Bitch in Dallas,” and indulged in a little dance-off, before swapping out her ballet flats for boots. 

On Friday, the “Ain’t in L.A.” singer confirmed what we knew to be true: “The baddest bitches are also in Dallas.”

Photo by Madison Truscan for Dallas Observer

Adéla, as many burgeoning pop stars before her, seems to intuitively understand the blend of sex, swagger and sensitivity — swathed in sparkles and screams — required for success. 

There is even a knowing detachment bordering upon irony to some of her lyrics — Adéla is credited a co-writer on all of her songs — exemplified by the searing “Sexonthebeat.” She cooed the song’s lyrics, “Do my dirty dance tonight/Serve it on a silver platter, baby/Make you think the choice is mine,” as the lights dazzled and the crowd howled. 

If she can find a way to stand apart sonically (much of Friday’s set began to blur into a homogenous smear of synth-pop and house rhythms) and bring more of her sly, raw perspective to the fore, Adéla could join the ranks of pop music immortals. Pop music endurance relies on transcending the white-hot heat of the moment, which found its apex Friday with the night’s final song, her viral smash hit “Nicole Kidman.” 

In case anyone forgot the name of Adéla’s new record.

Photo by Madison Truscan for Dallas Observer

Before she sang the track, however, she knelt at the foot of the sparely dressed stage, which featured nothing more than a bright pink barre pole and a video screen which displayed her name all night, to indulge a ritual.

“Every night at the end of the show, I do a little manifestation,” she explained. “These are the things I want to manifest tonight: I would love to do this forever and ever and ever … based on what I like, and not what other people want for me. … I would love and pray … to be a glamorous and talented person.” 

The room shouted its affirmations alongside her, suggesting that, perhaps, with their passion and her swaggerina vibes, the next time Adéla conducts her manifestation ritual in Dallas, it may be in a significantly larger room.