Kael co-composed Breast Cancer Pink with Dr. Chelsey Hauge-Zavaleta while Chelsey was going through treatment for young adult breast cancer. Breast Cancer Pink represents the liberatory potential of expressing anger: it narrates Chelsey’s story as a form of defiant speech that reframes her breast cancer experience on her terms while resisting normative pink narratives. By articulating her experiences of breast cancer through the creative force of her own story, feelings, and language, composing and recording this song helped Chelsey counteract the physical and emotional helplessness she experienced in relation to her diagnosis and treatment and the pink culture into which she was involuntarily thrust. As a cultural text and a refusal to participate in and support pink culture, Breast Cancer Pink responds to the dearth of breast cancer narratives focused on young women’s lives and bodies and departs from gendered expectations around how to appropriately narrate one’s breast cancer experience. Produced by Adam Popowitz and Kael Reid; sound engineering by Adam Popowitz.
The Love Booth and Other Plays is a set of seven short, multi-media plays written by Tara Goldstein with contributions from Jenny Salisbury and Alec Butler about queer and trans activism in the early LGBTQ liberation movement.
