Transgender songwriter and singer Ramon Te Wake will be acknowledging the passing of one of her heroes, Carmen Rupe, during her Soul Session With Ramon at Auckland's DNA tonight. Te Wake says she is "deeply saddened by the passing of a transgender legend who blazed a trail for us to come through. She was so colourful, so strong and so crazy and wonderful that you can't help but have her as a part of your own life." Te Wake, an accomplished documentary maker, spent a week with Carmen in 2006 filming a documentary for the Takataapui TV series and says she was struck by the aging diva's professionalism. "When you're making a documentary about someone you often end up working that person really hard, and we worked Carmen hard. She took the occasional break but otherwise she worked on and on, she was the consummate professional," Te Wake says. She says that during filming breaks Carmen would tell the crew some of the stories of her life. "Some of the things she went through were so scary I found myself wondering if I could ever have handled it. But some of her stories made us laugh too." At the last of her Soul Session with Ramon evenings for the year, from 6 till 9 tonight Te Wake will dedicate a song to Carmen and observe a moment of silence. She welcomes anyone who would be in the company of others mourning Carmen's loss and says she's happy for people to contribute their feelings and memories of Carmen throughout the evening.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Thursday, 15th December 2011 - 2:00pm