Episode 103: Skywatchers Ensemble

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ABD PRODUCTIONS / SKYWATCHERS community engagement programs in the Tenderloin Neighborhood of San Francisco

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"It’s the chemistry of people, who come from very different backgrounds, you have gay, transgender, straight, and different talents and different abilities coming together and making this music and magic"-Shavonne Allen

In this episode our featured voices are the founder of ABD Productions and the Sky Watchers Ensemble program, Anne Bluethenthal, along with the members of the Sky Watcher Ensemble, Shavonne Allen and Joel Yates  

Anne Bluethenthal - Founder ABD Productions & Skywatchers

Anne (she/her) is a pioneer in socially engaged art. Over 40 years she built a repertoire of choreography at once deceptively subversive and deeply rooted in a feminist, anti-colonial, and anti-patriarchal methodology. While creating over 200 performance works, Bluethenthal has been a mentor and educator to hundreds of young artists. Her pivotal work in social engagement through performance began in early politically-motivated dances, continued in international collaboration, and reaches a deep level of clarity with Skywatchers, where her philosophy of art-making ‘of, by and for’ the people has been most fully realized.

Shavonne Allen - Skywatcher Ensemble Artist Facilitator

Shavonne (she/her) is a San Francisco native. Her family was displaced by urban renewal, and she lived in several neighborhoods while attending school. Later, while tutoring students struggling academically, she experienced a series of life-altering events: domestic violence, substance abuse, and homelessness. She has been clean for several years and lives and works in the Tenderloin, where she has an opportunity to be an agent of real change.

Joel Yates - Skywatcher Ensemble Artist Facilitator

Joel (he/his) is a writer raised here on Ohlone Land (San Francisco). He has experienced and witnessed both loss within addiction and the fight to breathe. While reclaiming himself and recording the world in conjunction with a myriad of voices in the Skywatcher ensemble, he works creatively towards alignment and encourages the conduction of life. He hopes that his words help to demolish obstacles and broaden the sights of those they touch.

ABD Productions / Skywatchers

ABD PRODUCTIONS / SKYWATCHERS inspires social change through the arts. Our women- and queer-centered multi-ethnic company is committed to the production of new dance works created in collaboration with diverse communities. Our dances grow from deep investigations into the language of movement, using that vocabulary in eloquent, bold, and subversive acts of art.

Since its founding in 1984, Anne Bluethenthal’s ABD PRODUCTIONS has presented over 200 public performances locally and internationally at venues which include: the International Festival of Movement and Dance on the Volga (Russia), the Feminist Art Conference in Toronto, San Francisco Trolley Dances, Ohio State University, and the American Dance Guild Festival (New York), among many others. Under Bluethenthal’s artistic leadership, ABD has received many awards and honors, including the 2019 YBCA 100, San Francisco Weekly’s Black Box, San Francisco Bay Guardian’s Goldie Award for Achievement in Dance, and the Rhinette Award for Best Choreography.

After decades of generating work in conversation with issues of social justice and ecological sustainability, in 2010 Bluethenthal felt drawn to understand what it would mean to create art with the community members directly impacted by the subject of the work. What began as a single conversation in the tenant lounge of the historic Senator Hotel (a Tenderloin supportive housing residence) about the conditions within the supportive housing site began to build a relational collaboration leading to the creation of the SKYWATCHERS program.

Skywatchers is a multidisciplinary performance-based ensemble, a collaboration between artists and Tenderloin residents. We're founded on the belief that large-scale transformation begins with an intimate, interpersonal exchange that transforms all of us: artists, resident participants, and audience members. We work with hundreds of community members each year—ensemble members and audience participants—creating works that express and inform the social, cultural, and physical identity of the Tenderloin community. Skywatchers ensemble is 75% Black/ African American, 5% Latinx, 5% multi-ethnic, and 15% Caucasian. 1/3 identify as LGBTQ.

To find out more about the work of the Skywatchers Ensemble please watch these videos that Ann spoke about in our interview and consider hosting a screening party at your house and or favorite meet-up spot. The 10th Anniversary Documentary- The Slow Art of Belonging: Skywatchers 10th Anniversary another video Reimagining the City as Our Own another video Inside Hotel Iroquois and Standing Stone: In May, 2020, during the shelter-in-place ordinance in San Francisco, ABD/Skywatchers came together to sing "Standing Stone," an ensemble favorite by choral director, Melanie DeMore. In a time of painful though necessary separation, we are singing to each other and to you, embodying our interconnection, love, and shared commitment, deploying the power of our collective voices to heal, to witness, and to survive.

Get Engaged Donation/Volunteer

+ Get engaged in supporting our ABD Productions / Skywatchers Ensemble through supporting their supporting their programs below and through making a donation

+ Annual Homeless Person's Memorial Vigil - December 15 (Processional at 5:00) 5:30PM . The annual event is organized by SF Interfaith Council, SF Night Ministry, Faithful Fools, SF Coalition on Homelessness, and ABD/Skywatchers, this memorial vigil is held every year on or near the Winter Solstice to honor the memories of our neighbors and friends who have died on the streets of San Francisco that year. We gather at Civic Center Plaza across from City Hall, have a singing processional, and return for a vigil in the plaza. In silence, in prayer, in song we remember them, honor them, mourn our loss, reach out to each other for comfort and hope, and nourish our solidarity in working for change.

+ To find out more about how to support the ABD Productions / Skywatchers Ensemble, booking the Ensemble, and hosting a screening of their films please visit their website and reach out through sending an email to info@abdproductions.org

Videos

Enjoy the “Towards Opulence” Slideshow, the Documentary “Standing Stone” and the 10th Anniversary Documentary “The Slow Art of Belonging”

SkywatchersStandingStone from ABD/Skywatchers on Vimeo.

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“It’s a safe space of confidentiality and agreement and, the agreement, just allows the love to continue and allows a space for healing. It’s a space for learning, space for conversation, space for laugh, space for fun.”

— Joel Yates,Skywatchers Ensemble Member

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