A piece centred on the late Carmen Rupe is a finalist in the New Zealand Radio Awards. Carmen: I Am Here, I Am Me is nominated in the Best Music Feature category. It was produced by Gareth Watkins, who interweaves stories from Dana De Milo with archival recordings of Carmen and an interview with Jack Body, who composed the Carmen tribute Songs and Dances of Desire.It includes Body talking openly about his sexuality for one of the first times: “We all have naughty secrets which we don’t talk about; and we also have fears about how we behave; about not speaking the truth for whatever reason ... and this is something Carmen teaches us that we should overcome. This is somebody who had no secrets about who they were or what they thought. It’s just to face up to who you are.” You can hear the feature on Radio NZ Concert's website here
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Wednesday, 9th April 2014 - 3:51pm