Anne Bluethenthal and Joel Yates will be presenting on community-centered arts practices from San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood to the front lines of El Salvador’s civil war of the 1980’s. Together they will offer case studies of two projects:  

ANDARES is a performance work that emerged from a years’ long collaboration among survivors, artists, and former combatants of the Salvadoran civil war. The association that grew out of that performance continues today, advancing El Salvador's historical memory movement. SKYWATCHERS—rooted in SF’s Tenderloin District—is a mixed-ability, community-based performing arts ensemble of artists and Tenderloin neighbors committed to leveraging arts for justice and equity. In existence for over a decade, their performance repertoire celebrates our common humanity, exposes conditions of structural inequity, and creates a systemic critique while illuminating the brilliance of our city’s most marginalized citizens.

In 1984 Anne Bluethenthal created ABD Productions, a multicultural, multiethnic performing arts company committed to inspiring social change through the arts. After three decades of building a repertoire of original works, Bluethenthal initiated the Skywatchers program in 2011. Rooted in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District, Skywatchers is a mixed-ability, community-based performing arts ensemble of Bay Area artists and Tenderloin neighbors committed to leveraging arts for justice and equity. 

Joel Yates is a writer and 4th generation San Franciscan. His words have been molded by active truths pressed through history and handed down to him. In these decades he has experienced and witnessed both loss and the struggle to breathe. While reclaiming himself and recording the world in concert with a myriad of voices in the Skywatchers Ensemble, he works creatively towards alignment and encourages the conduction of life.  Through art he fills spaces in his personal journey. His stage experience started with acting and dance, and he has never moved far from words, whether oratory, poetry, or story. At present he has added song to his list of ingredients within ensemble performance. Each art form and line of poetry is used with the hope it can demolish obstacles and broaden the sights of those they touch.