Dana International

Dana International was born into a poor family of immigrants from Yemen , living on the outskirts of Tel Aviv . She was the youngest child in the family - her sister Limor is 4 years older than her, and her brother Nimrod is 3 years older. Her father worked as an assistant judge, and her mother was a housewife. From an early age, Dana liked to play with girls, and use dolls as toys. Thus, already in Dana's childhood, signs of transsexuality were manifested.

From the age of eight she began to study music. From ten - to sing in the municipal choir , and at fourteen she took part for the first time in the musical “ Joseph and the Amazing Living Veil of Dreams”. After finishing elementary school, she continued her studies at Ironi Alef, where she met two brothers ( Lior and Schmulick Sa'adia ), who later began working at her dance class . In the beginning, Dana did well at school, but the internal contradictions, fueled by puberty, became unbearable for her. Her grades began to decline, and popularity in nightclubs - to grow. At the age of 16, she began performing in clubs, dressing in bright women's dresses and wigs. To her joy, the parents reacted to these "oddities" of the child with understanding.

In 1988, Dana met Ofer Nissim in a nightclub, who organized a revue called Li La Lo (Me, her, him) and had difficulty finding a soloist. So a new name appeared - Dana and a parody of Whitney Houston 's song “My Name Is Not Susan”, which soon became very popular. The next song “Dana International” was already able to break into the American charts - they learned about it outside of Israel .

Popularity and gender affirmations

After the release of the Dana International record, Dana gained not only popularity, but also money, and in 1993 she took an important step in her life - she went to England for a sex-correcting operation . Her parents, as well as sister Limor, with whom they had been sharing secrets since childhood, easily received this news.

Dana changed her passport name to female - “Sharon”, and Sharon Cohen appeared in the world, acting under her stage name Dana International. After the rehabilitation period, the first Dana International album was released, which became gold.

According to Dana, people should react to her sex-correction operation as an insignificant detail in her biography, as a change in hair color or plastic surgery of the nose: “First of all, I'm a singer, only then other things go - character, beauty and the past” . At the same time, Dana took part in gay parades more than once.

Umpatampa's next album (1994) went platinum. In the same 1994, she became the performer of the year in Israel. Illegal copies of her songs were successful abroad, especially in Egypt.

In 1995, Dana tried her hand to get into the Eurovision song contest , but participation in the Kdam Eurovision Song Contest (Israeli preliminary competition) brought her only second place. This was followed by the release of the new EPTempa album, in which trance and house music were mixed in a disco.

Eurovision Victory

In November 1997, Dana International was chosen to represent Israel at Eurovision 98 with her song “ Diva ”, written by Zwick Peak . In May 1998, she won first place in the competition, receiving 174 points. After the victory, Dana International became a full-fledged international superstar, continuously giving interviews to CNN , BBC , Sky News , MTV and many other prestigious channels. The single "Diva" which was released soon instantly hit the top of the charts in most European countries, the album was sold in over 400,000 copies worldwide. However, the contract of the new promising star with Sony was never signed due to disagreements.

After winning the Eurovision

In May 2000, a documentary film Lady D dedicated to Dana International was released in Israel.

Dana International, with great plans for the future, recorded a cover version of Woman In Love by Barbra Streisand , but the song did not become such a hit as Diva was . Then followed the Free album, which failed in Europe, after which Dana returned to Israel and began work on new projects. Soon the Israeli version of the album Free was released , and after visiting Japan - and its Japanese version.

In 2005, in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the Eurovision song contest, Diva was selected as one of the 14 best songs for the entire existence of the festival.

In the summer of 2007, Dana International released an album called Hakol ze Letova (“All for the Better”), one of the compositions of which, Seret Hodi (“Indian Film”), she performed with the famous Israeli singer Idan Yaniv . The new single hit Love Boy has become the most popular hit on the radio in 10 years. The period 2006-2007 was full of tours in the United States. And by 2008, her gaze again turned to Eurovision, and she wrote a song for Boaz Mauda , a young and promising performer, to participate in the contest. But he could not repeat the success of Dana herself, taking ninth place.

Dana International was a invited guest in the final of the Russian national selection for Eurovision 2009.

She also represented Israel at the Eurovision Song Contest 2011 in the second semi-final with the song Ding Dong (“Ding-Don”), but did not enter the final of the contest.

At the end of April 2013, Dana International released the new single, Ma La'asot? ("What to do?"), Which became the first single from her upcoming new album. The second single was Loca , released specifically for the "Pride Parade 2013", which took place in early June in Tel Aviv. The third single, Ir Shlema ("The Whole City") was later released.

In January 2014, the first release of Dana Yeshnan Banot’s own TV show was aired on Israeli music channel 24. Also in 2014, Dana released four singles: Down On Me , Yeladim Ze Simcha (“Children Are Happiness”), Emunot Ktanot and an updated version of the track Saida Sultana . In 2015, Dana introduced a cover of the original Zomba track, released in 1994 from the Umpatampa album.

In 2019, at the Tel Aviv Eurovision Song Contest, Dana, as the festival winner in 1998, and the iconic icon for the contest, performed in the first semi-final on May 14 with a cover of Bruno Mars’s song “ Just The Way You Are ” and opened the Final with Diva and Tel Aviv May 18th.

The Israel Defense Forces army truck brand Navistar International 4700, jokingly called "Dana."

• 1993 Dana International , IMP Dance
• 1994 Umpatampa , IMP Dance
• 1995 EPTempa , IMP Dance
• 1996 Maganuna , Helicon / Big Foot
• 1998 Diva - The Hits , IMP Dance
• 1999 Free , CNR Music
• 2000 Free (Israeli edition), NMC
• 2001 Yoter ve yoter (more and more), NMC
• 2002 Ha'chalom ha'efshari (the possible dream), IMP Dance
• 2003 The CD's collection , IMP Dance
• 2007 " Hakol ze Letova ", Hed Arzi Ltd.
• 2019 TBA

• Official website in English
• Official website in Hebrew (Hebrew)
• Singer Dana-Fest Festival of Trans Culture