Yana Alana’s New AlbumThat’s right, a full length treat from Australia’s punk cabaret queen Yana Alana

Queen of queer cabaret Yana Alana and her band Tha Paranas will launch her first full-length album, I Don’t Want to be an Australian Celebrity, this October at Arts Centre Melbourne.

Born in Melbourne’s queer and alternative clubs, she has evolved into a Helpmann Award winning Australian cabaret icon who – with her all female band Tha Paranas and director Anni Davey – also boasts 11 Green Room Awards.

The alter ego of Sarah Ward, Yana is a self-obsessed, tragic and heroic femme-drag bouffant clown, a champion for the disenfranchised with an incredible voice scaling from a Bassey-sized belt to an operatic soprano. Yana Alana and Tha Paranas offer a celebration of difference in a world obsessed with bland cookie-cutter celebrity.

I Don’t Want to be an Australian Celebrity is comprised of songs from the show formally known as In Concert, which premiered at the 2010 Midsumma Festival and went on to win an unprecedented six Green Room Awards including Best Production, Best Original Music, Best Cabaret Artiste, Best Ensemble, Best Musical Director and Best Director.

Expect a camp night out with songs celebrating difference and defiance from Melbourne’s favourite diva when Yana Alana launches I Don’t Want to be an Australian Celebrity at Arts Centre Melbourne.

Check out Sarah’s Creative Couples segment for iView that really captures what she and Yana (and her partner Bec, of course) are about: http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/creative-couples/