Award-winning Canadian transgender musician Rae Spoon will be returning to Ottawa on Feb. 28 to perform at Centretown’s Raw Sugar Café.
Spoon was the subject of a National Film Board music documentary that was selected for Sundance 2014, and the artist’s second book, Gender Failure, will be published in April.
After living as a transgendered man for a decade, Spoon asked to be referred to by the pronoun “they” rather than “he” or “she.”
“I like to go by the gender-neutral pronoun ‘they’ because I don’t identify as either side of the gender binary,” says Spoon. “For me, that’s a way of respecting that for myself.”
Spoon, 33, has said they have struggled with their gender identity since childhood, but their music acts as some form of an escape. Their songs range in topic from death to coming out as a queer in high school.
The upcoming performance will be Spoon’s first visit to the Raw Sugar Café, but they are no stranger to Ottawa. The Montreal-based singer-songwriter has been performing in Ottawa for the past 11 years, and has been featured in the city’s Tulip Festival and Folk Festival. Spoon has also played at other local venues including the National Arts Centre, Carleton University, Venus Envy, and SAW Gallery.
Due to the expected interest in the event, the Raw Sugar Café has arranged for Spoon to play two consecutive shows that night, at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m.
“We’re expecting a large number of people,” says Nadia Kharyati, the owner of the café. “Rae has a good following here in Ottawa. This way we can accommodate everyone.”
Those who attend the show can expect to hear some songs from My Prairie Home, Spoon’s latest album, which was released in August.
“It’s a bit folkier than the stuff I’ve been putting out for the last five years, so I think a lot of people are connecting to that who like folk music,” says Spoon. “I think people find it personal and they seem to identify with it.”
The album, which depicts the artist’s home as a place they can no longer return to, serves as the soundtrack for the NFB documentary, also titled My Prairie Home. It features Spoon’s early life growing up queer in an abusive evangelical Christian family.
The documentary premiered at the Vancouver International Film Festival in 2013 and has been nominated for a Canadian Screen Award for Best Feature Documentary. The film was also an official selection for Sundance, the influential Utah film festival founded by Hollywood icon Robert Redford.
Spoon has co-written their second book, Gender Failure, with transgender writer and performer Ivan Coyote.
“We’re writing about our own feelings about failing at both sides of the gender binary,” says Spoon. “Also, ultimately how the gender binary fails everyone at some point or another.”
Gender Failure started as a multimedia show based out of British Columbia, a mix of storytelling, music, video, and animation.
Spoon says they are looking forward to performing for an Ottawa audience, and intends to return to Ottawa again in the future.
“There’s always a really nice scene in Ottawa for the arts,” says Spoon. “The music communicates beyond whatever shared experiences we may have.”