Biography

Yaron Cohen was born on the 2nd of February 1972 in Tel Aviv. He was the youngest of three children (Dana has an older sister, Limor and an older brother Nimrod) of a Yemenite working family. Yaron early realized he belonged to stage. He liked the Eurovision Song Contest and followed it, especially when Ofra Haza (who had Yemenite roots as Dana) represented Israel with the song Hi in 1983. That day he swore himself that he would be there, on that stage, someday.

But it wasn't he, but she who went up to stages showing his feminine voice and superb singing skills as a drag in gay clubs where DJ Ofer Nissim (now her personal agent) mixed. Dana wasn't accepted by ultra-orthodox Jews that still claim that being gay must be punished. Despite this he had huge success and was popular. Dana's first hit was the song My Name Is Not Saida. It was a lampooning cover version of Whitney Houston's song My Name Is Not Susan. It was played non-stop on radio stations and the people loved her.

In 1993, and in hiding of friends and family, Yaron flew to London and came back as Sharon Cohen, after the gender reassignment surgery. That same year she released her first album in Israel, although it soon spread to other Middle-West countries such as Egypt and Jordan. It was called, like one of her songs and from which she adopted her name, Dana International. The album soon turned into gold in Israel. In 1994 Dana released her second album called Umpatampa and was awarded as Best Female Artist in Israel in 1996.

Dana decided to participate in the Israeli Pre-Eurovision Selection (KDAM) in 1995. She ended up 2nd, with the feeling that her friends were right when saying that people would never vote a transsexual to represent their country.

Back focusing on her music career, Dana released her third album in 1996 called Maganona, which means Crazy in Arab. The album was an answer to Dana's Egyptian and Arab-speaking audience. In Egypt her music had been censored, but five million copies of the album were sold, without Dana earning anything from it.

Finally in 1998 Dana's dream came true. She was selected by an Israeli Broadcasting Channel commission to represent the country in that year's Eurovision Song Contest. Jean-Paul Gaultier got in touch with her to design the dress she should wear during the performance of the song called Diva.
The contest was held on the 9th of May in the Birmingham Wimble Arena. That year a change was introduced and people could vote for her by phone, instead of judges that had the right to give the points. Dana showed that she could sing and move on stage, became an icon for gays to fight for their rights and eventually won the Eurovision Song Contest. With her beautiful dresses and great performance, Dana won the hearts of the audience worldwide and at the contest where they were waving Israeli flags.

After winning Dana released the album Diva - The Collection in 1998. The management of the company Polydor forbid Dana to publish certain songs on this album. She took the company to court and eventually won the trial.

After a quiet period, her first international album called Free was released in 2000. The album was released almost all over Europe and had even an Israeli and Japanese edition. The two singles released from the album were covers, a cover of Barbra Streisand's Woman In Love and the cover of Steve Wonder's Free. In 2000 Dana was traveling the world to promote her album and went to countries like Japan and Russia to perform.

Dana continued releasing popular albums, in 2001 called More And More and in 2002 called The Possible Dream. She continued performing around the world. It has been quiet for a long time around the Diva that released in 2004 her last album, which was a collection album.

As she admitted herself, it was quiet for way to long. Now she is back with her album All For The Good, which she released in 2007. So far she released already several songs from the album that all turned in to hits. Her duet with the young singer Idan Yaniv, called Indian Movie, was played non stop on all the radio stations. We can say with certainty..the diva is back!!


References:
Dana International, The Diplomatic Club Magazine

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