THIS YEAR'S ENTRY

Denmark has won the Eurovision Song Contest on tweo occasions since it first entered the competition in 1957. This year Danish broadcaster DR decided to expand their selection process to three shows, with two semi-finals and a final. Over three weekend's sixteen songs were reduced to the one that will fly the Danish flag in Helsinki in May.

The Danish national final staged on February 10th Hortens saw the biggest turn-around in the fortunes of any song in this year's Eurovision election. In the second semi-final, "Drama Queen" performed and co-witten by Peter Andersen, under the stage name of "DQ" failed to get one of the four automatic places in the final. Instead it went into a "second chance" selection, which was run by Danish radio. The radio listeners liked the song, and gave it a "wild card" slot in the final. Then against the odds in the final, television viewers chose as their winner a song that they had eliminated a week previously. This is the first time that a song has gone through a "second chance" process and ended up getting the ticket to Eurovision.

DQ (Drama Queen) is the stage alias of 34-year old singer and entertainer Peter Andersen who comes from the southern part of Zealand in Denmark. Born in the town of Koege and brought up in Borup in the middle of Zealand, he moved to Copenhagen after finishing school. Originally, Peter was trained as a hairdresser, but after having worked in that profession for almost a year he chose to make singing and performing more than just a hobby. Has performed in various rockbands and in 1997-99 in his first drag show, Naughty Voices but soon graduated to a solo role, donning a variety of dresses and becoming one of Denmark's best known drag queens.

At first, Peter found it hard to imagine himself performing in a dress, but he soon got used to it. So quickly, actually, that he went on to perform as singer in another band, Tina Turner Jam (later called Turn on Tina) with nothing but well-known Tina Turner hits on the repertoire.

Every month Peter performed from six to eight times, partly in Turn on Tina and partly in his own dragshow. In Denmark he gained a reputation for  changing costumes up to 13 times during a one hour long show, this enabling him to copy well-known female singers like Tina Turner and Cher and Danish stars like Birthe Kjaer and Sanne Salomonsen. One song in particular is very famous among his audience, because it is considered to be a Danish classic, gaining third place in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1989, "Vi Maler Byen Roed" by Birthe Kjaer. So far Peter has released one single, “MissTerious” (1998) and participated in two albums, “Rock’n Dance” and “Danmarks Bedste Kopier” (“Denmark’s best copies”) (in 2000).

As well as performing cover versions, Peter also writes some of his own material, and is currently working on his debut album. That album will contain not only "Drama Queen", which he co-wrote but also a lot of other songs in the disco/pop style.

Away from the spotlight Peter is "married" to Lucas (in 2005) and has to Chihuahua dogs, Tyson and Chilie.

Peter's co-songwriters are composer Simon Munk and lyricist Claus Christensen. Simon Munk dedicates much of his time to his video production company, Konsensus Film, but has also appeared on stage in the Danish Melody Grand Prix in 2001, performing the song "Mit hjerte det banker" (My Heart Beats) with co-vocalist Anita Lerche. 

Claus Christensen, a fellow vocalist from the studio vocal group of the DR entertainment show "Foerstevaelger"(First Choice")  where he works with Simon Munk. In addition to his vocal performances on "Foerstevaelger", Claus Christensen is also a songwriter and producer for several popular Danish bands such as "Blaa Oejne" (Blue Eyes), Soap and Creamy.

Since the selection of the Danish entry, the video of the performance has been shown around Europe, raising the profile of DQ and his entry. However the selection of another drag queen for the Ukraine may limit the novelty value of the entry, should it get to the final in Helsinki. Despite this, Denmark is one of the favourites to qualify from this year's semi-final, despite enjoying a mixed reception on various internet polls and being one of the most obvious "love it or hate it" songs in this year's contest. 

  DENMARK @ EUROVISION

First entry:	1957
Number of previous entries:	35
Best result:	Winners (1963 & 2000)
Worst result:	Last (2002)
Most votes given to:	Sweden (avg. 10.1 pts)
Most votes received from:	Iceland (avg. 10.9 pts)