b'MUSICSARA KANUTSKI (SARA KAE)Sara Kanutski is eager to see her own career ambitions play out on the Canadian stage. After years of growing up surrounded by musical greats, it is no surprise that Sara Kanutski (aka Sara Kae) is well on track to becoming one herself. I grew up in a house where my dad was either singing pow-wow music or playing music or putting on Johnny Cash or Hank Williams, and nothing was able to give me the feeling that music did, she tells She is Wise. Because my parents were so encouraging, I was fortunate to be able to take that passion on and really run with it.Kaes early musical training was a mix of formal classes, YouTube videos, and playing Taylor Swift on repeat. However, the motivation to use her craft as a medium for Indigenous storytelling and healing deepened after seeing the impact her music made on those who needed it to hear it most. My dad worked a lot with Indigenous youth, and when I was 12, he would take me to play at his workshops in communities all over Ontario, she recalls. That really shaped me into who I am today because I saw the realities of a lot of students who were struggling and didnt have the same resources and support as a lot of other children did.With the fire lit, Kae moved on from touring with her dad to begin taking gigs wherever a mic was free. Along the way, she enrolled in the Music Performance and Technology program at the Metalworks Institute, where she spent two years honing her craft and learning the ins and outs of the entertainment industry. As an independent artist, it is super hard to graspThunder-Bay-based Sara Kae recently how everything works, so I felt like gettingreleased her first single, Risemyself in a place with like-minded individ-uals would be a good first step, she recalls.70Fall/Winter 2022'