Person
In 1965, Daniela Mercury was born under the sign of Leo. A strong and exuberant personality was already foreseen. When she was a child, she fell in love for dance and by the age of 8, she started dancing, guided by the hands of Tia Angela at the Escola Ana Nery. Those were the first steps of the dancer who still hadn’t discovered the singer.

Daughter of Liliana Mercury and Antonio Fernando de Abreu Ferreira de Almeida, Daniela had a healthy childhood together with her four brothers and sisters: Tom, Cristiana, Vânia and Marcos. The humble but purposeful middle-class life was led within the liking for playing and arts and the responsibility for studying.

Singer
Daniela Mercury is a singer who was born in the Carnival of Bahia and is always revolutionizing her artistic expression. It all started when Daniela discovered her talent as she performed in pubs, at the age of 15. Soon after that, she dared to face the most difficult challenge: that of Trio Elétrico - a mobile stage followed by thousands of people through the streets of Salvador. For the artist, there couldn't be a better school. Nobody would understand how a singer who had suddenly appeared was already capable of such a complete performance. Only the Carnival of Bahia could solve that mystery. And that is one of the secrets for her great success, which has naturally made Daniela Mercury one of the main artists of Brazilian Popular Music nowadays. With her innovative spirit and all the energy she puts forth on stage, Daniela Mercury took her music everywhere, as a truly ambassadress of Brazilian culture.

Song writer
The need to express her ideas, opinions, feelings and musicality has made Daniela, since her very first album, reveal herself as a great songwriter. Either on her own or with a partner, Daniela wrote songs for all her albums and some of those tracks became smashing hits.
Daniela is also responsible for the arrangements of most of the songs performed in her albums and concerts, elaborating them either on her own or in a collective creation process together with her band’s musicians. This participation in the arrangements allows the artist to defend each work with the confidence of those who achieve their goals and the joy of an artist who lives according to her artistic identity
Daniela is also responsible for the arrangements of most of the songs performed in her albums and concerts, elaborating them either on her own or in a collective creation process together with her band’s musicians. This participation in the arrangements allows the artist to defend each work with the confidence of those who achieve their goals and the joy of an artist who lives according to her artistic identity.

Dancer
The passion for music was present in Daniela Mercury's life long before she discovered her voice, by the means of movement and creative restlessness brought by dance. Daniela was still a 8-year-old little girl when she took her first steps in ballet and surrendered to that art. In her teens, dance started to share the artist's attention with music and her voice. It was the time of performances in pubs in Salvador where Daniela started to develop and improve her talent as a singer.
Later on, for her university entrance exams, the choice for dance was inevitable. While she was going to the Dance School of the Federal University of Bahia, Daniela took part in groups, as a dancer, performing in the countryside of Bahia and other States.

It was then that the experience in creating choreographs started and she would later use it as an organic part of her concerts. That was the creation of an original style, which mixed her ballet and modern dance background with her experience in Afro rooted street dance typical of Salvador. Before she became a professional singer, Daniela earned her living as a dancer, choreographer and dance teacher. She was part of the dance group "Salto", with which she performed many times, and was invited to teach her technique at the dance school of the Fundação Cultural do Estado (Bahia's State Cultural Foundation).
Even after she left her dance career, Daniela considers her physical preparation achieved through dance a very important matter. To be able to fulfill the thrill of her concerts, which last two hours on the average, the artist takes dance, gym and body building lessons, almost every day throughout the year, in a rigorous physical preparation comparable to an athlete's.

Her expression through movement, together with her physical preparation and voice control, help Daniela sing and dance all the time during her concerts. Without going off key or out of breath.
The result is the amazement and admiration from fans and reviewers. An evidence of that was the impact the artist caused in her debut in Paris, in 1997, when the newspapers highlighted her astounding performance on the stage of Lincoln Center in New York, which resulted in a acclamatory review published in the New York Times.

Producer
Daniela Mercury is an artist who is always concerned about the integrity of her art. She invested on the construction of her autonomy and the independence of her career, basic conditions for artistic freedom. To make way for her independence, she founded the production agency “O Canto da Cidade”, which she heads. With the same effort towards autonomy, Páginas do Mar was conceived: a music publishing house created by Daniela to guarantee the control of her work therefore avoiding the bad usage or vulgarization of her songs. Thus, Daniela Mercury decides on the routes of her career and feels free to make daring or commercially risky choices. She is autonomous to do her social and citizenship work together with the UNICEF, the Comunidade Solidária and the UNESCO and, above all, she keeps her integrity as an artist.

Citzen
Daughter of a social worker, Daniela Mercury has embraced solidarity and the effort to contribute to a fairer society since an early age.
Her love for Brazil, so visible in her art and overtly declared in all the countries where she performs, works as motivation to fight against social injustice, abandonment, sexual exploitation and child labor.
The partnership with organizations such as the UNICEF, the Comunidade Solidária and the UNESCO is a priority for Daniela. In her busy schedule of shows, TV appearances, radio visits, and press conferences, she always finds a way to participate in campaigns for citizenship and social justice.


By Daniela's Site

 

note: thanks for the fans and fotolog to donate the photos. centraldanielamercury, fotolog.terra.com.br/danielagomes