Pink Light, Punk Spirit, and the Pulse of Chosen Family
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
by Jad Salfiti
“It’s electric” blares from the speakers as feet shuffle across the floor in syncopated steps for the electric slide. The Kantine of Berlin’s Sophiensæle pulses with pink and purple light during Queer Family Album (Volume 2), curated by Katie Lee Dunbar. Softened by flowing fabrics, the space takes on the feel of an intimate, avant-garde Shangri-la—part DIY punk, part picnic gathering.
Across two nights, the immersive programme brings together a collective of Berlin-based and international guest artists' to explore the elastic idea of family: both the ones we are born into and the ones we choose. Dislodging biological families from the top of the hierarchy, Queer Family Album imagines kinship as something more fluid.
In one section, audience members are invited to listen to podcast episodes by Abilaschan Balamuraley in collaboration with Dunbar and the crew of QFA Volume 1 and 2. On Bluetooth headphones, the conversations turn to family abolition and anti-family: the dismantling of the family as the primary unit of care in favour of more diffuse, chosen networks. Upstairs in the Hochzeitsaal, a heartwarming live performance by Juliana Piquero breaks the fourth wall, inviting audience members to draw printed circumstances from a bowl and blurring happenstance with intention. In a liminal space between participatory theatre and improv, the piece neatly captures the fragility of family—sometimes formed, other times inherited, but just as easily lost.
The programme is at its most compelling when it leans into its more radical and destabilising elements, as seen in the hypnotic film by Dylan Spencer-Davidson and Joy Mariama Smith, which poses questions that brush against the biological family’s status as a natural or ideal social form. Guests sip tea and tuck into creamy Ukrainian borscht—beetroot and coconut milk—donated in support of Palestinian families in Gaza.
Contact: Katie Lee Dunbar- katieleedunbar@gmail.com
Cast & Credits
Queer Family Album – Collaborating artists: Katie Lee Dunbar, KAy Garnellen, Juliana Piquero, Yvonne Sembene, Joy Mariama Smith, Dylan Spencer-DavidsonCostumes, stage: Hagar Ophir with Antonia EckardtCostumes Fam Jam: Derek Di Fabio
Dramaturgy assistance: Maya Weinberg
Technical Director, light design: Catalina Fernandez
Technical assistance: Stevie Gunter
Light design: Shun Perrotta
Sound tech: Lena Marcus
Press, marketing, social media: Apricot Productions – Angela Fegers
Production: Apricot Productions – Nadine Freisleben
Food: Promona Sengupta and Talya Lubinsky of Bad Apples Catering
Accessibility, access friend: Miles Wendt
Host: KAy Garnellen
Concept, initiating artist, dramaturgy: Katie Lee Dunbar
Photos: Mayra Wallraff
A production by Katie Lee Dunbar in co-production with Ballhaus Ost and Sophiensæle. Funded by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion. Funded by the Performing Arts Fund from funds provided by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. Media partners: Missy Magazine, Siegessäule, taz.
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