The global language of dance music was written in two cities: Detroit and Berlin. In Detroit, house and techno emerged in the late 1970s and early ’80s as acts of radical Black invention. Shaped by post-industrial decay, economic dispossession, and the residue of civil rights disillusionment, Detroit’s scene fused machine logic with spiritual intent. What emerged wasn’t just music, it was a philosophy. Artists like Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson weren’t trying to replicate disco’s glamour; they were building futures. Futurism, for them, meant reprogramming reality with rhythm.
Berlin’s story was different but rhymed. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, a newly reunified city became a playground for subcultural reinvention. Vacant buildings, crumbling factories, and decommissioned power plants became sites of collective expression, fueled by the same imported techno records that had once echoed through Detroit’s basements. However, in Berlin, the music took on a colder intensity. It wasn’t about optimism, it was about freedom. It became the sound of a city in suspension, ungoverned but vibrating with a yearning energy.
Both cities used music to reimagine time, space, and self without permission and templates. Yet, much of this legacy has been institutionalized in ways that obscure its emotional and aesthetic intelligence. These music scenes evolved into ways of building connection where none existed, ways of producing meaningful community when traditional systems no longer held.
As a cultural producer and co-founder of the Berlin-based collective G3, Marlene Donner and founding partners Betty Schupp and Kiara Mayr are on a mission to fuse both cultures and construct a brand system rooted in the same logic that shaped Detroit and Berlin in their earliest scenes: identity before industry, aesthetics before monetization, and presence before product.
Marlene Donner. Photo Credit: Maxime Georges
On September 13, 2025, that ethos culminates in full with House Party — A Star Formation at Coco Boule Berlin, presented by Berlin based collective G3 Disco.
When programming House Party — A Star Formation, Donner wanted to be intentional, anchoring the night in lineage. That’s why they teamed up with the Detroit based collective Alternative School and chose to bring out Stacey “Hotwaxx” Hale, one of the foundational figures of Detroit’s house scene and among the first women to gain recognition within it. In connecting Berlin’s contemporary scene with Detroit’s history, Donner and Schupp are reinforcing a shared architecture of feeling while creating intentional encounters between global dance music legacies and the systems that sustain them today.
Donner’s overall approach to creative direction is informed by a diverse set of international experiences. In Milan, she worked as a model and gained firsthand insight into the visual discipline and exclusivity of the luxury fashion industry. Later, she developed a private travel advisory business, which curated high-end, music-focused itineraries for global clients, a role that required both cultural fluency and a sharp sense of aesthetic judgment. Her consulting work in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where she contributed to the design and sound programming of the Iron Fairies nightclub, allowed her to translate European underground sensibilities into Southeast Asian hospitality contexts. While in New York, she gained a closer perspective on the operational side of nightlife culture, spending time around some of its most influential figures.
Together, these experiences laid the foundation for a framework based not on curatorial precision, experiential design, and a strong understanding of global creative markets. G3 is the outcome of that accumulation and the Star Formation the latest project. It stages a rare meeting of two sound cities under a feminine creative logic. The night will include panel talks, soul-forward sets, and spaces that prioritize rhythm over rigidity as well as conversation over consumption. It marks an attempt to build transnational brand equity from philosophy, not product.
This is what makes Donner’s model so subversive in a market still addicted to speed, scale, and VC playbooks. Her path is a rebellion against this status quo, and has been for a while. Her university thesis comparing U.S. and German brand communication now echoes in her work: a long-standing interest in how nations, scenes, and people design themselves into meaning.
While the corporate world continues to treat culture as an accessory, Donner understands it is foundational. On September 13th, G3 Disco will bring this mission in Berlin to life.
The September event will serve as both culmination and blueprint, evidence that intentional cultural production remains a viable framework for shaping how communities and creative systems take form across cultural and historical lines.
Featured Photo Credit: Nig Scho
