Shavonne Allen (she/her) is a San Francisco native and has been a key performer with Skywatchers since 2019. Formerly homeless and a recovering addict, she is today a community activist, artivist, and health worker. Becoming a performing artist with Skywatchers has been a vehicle for healing and reinvention as well as for nourishing strong relationships. Through her community work, Shavonne has become a resource, advocate and leader throughout the neighborhood.
Founder/Artistic Director of ABD Productions, a performing arts company committed to inspiring social change through the arts, Anne Bluethenthal’s work grows from the belief that relationship is the first site of social change. In 2011, Bluethenthal initiated the Skywatchers program, rooted in SF’s Tenderloin neighborhood. A multi-ethnic mixed-ability, cross-generational community-based performing arts ensemble of Bay Area artists and Tenderloin residents committed to leveraging arts for justice and equity. Among Bluethenthal’s honors are the Guggenheim Fellowship, Isadora Duncan Dance Award, SF Arts Commission’s Artist Legacy Award, YBCA 100, SF Chronicle’s Best of 2001, SF Bay Guardian’s Goldie Award for Achievement in Dance.
One of the most outstanding contemporary vocal artists preserving the African American Folk Tradition, Melanie DeMore has been the Musical Director for Skywatchers since the beginning. Her 40+ year career has been dedicated to teaching, lecturing, mentoring, conducting, directing, and inspiring children and adults in the power of song as a force for social and political change. Melanie has performed with countless world-renowned artists such as Linda Tillery, Sweet Honey in The Rock, Odetta, Pete Seeger, and John Prine. She has written large choral works including 'Freedom Land, A Journey on the Underground Railroad' using the Gullah pounding stick.
A Bay Area-based performance poet, author, actor, vocalist and emcee. She has been working with the Skywatchers ensemble since 2023. Her first book of poetry, Evolutionary Heart, was released on Nomadic Press in 2016. Nazelah’s work can also be found in The Racket Journal: Culture Counts Magazine (2021), La Raiz Magazine (2022), and others. When she’s not writing, performing, and facilitating with Skywatchers, Nazelah enjoys writing horror screenplays and saving the day. She also gives the best hugs in the Bay Area.
A theatre artist, music maker, arts administrator, educator, and social worker who recently relocated to the Bay Area to join the Skywatchers team. Through creative arts, she aims to dismantle barriers, build empathy and create networks of care and belonging in order to build equitable, sustainable communities. She is a facilitator of the methods of Augusto Boal and has designed and facilitated workshops in Chile, Brazil, Pakistan, India, Mozambique and throughout the US. As co-founder of Backyard Youth Theatre, she is frequently called to a backyard to co-create new worlds with young people.
A Goldie and Isadora Duncan Dance Award winner who has been a performer, choreographer, and arts educator in the Bay Area for over thirty years. A member of the internationally acclaimed Zaccho Dance Theater Company, she has choreographed for Berkeley Rep, and danced with Dance Brigade, her own company Shakiri/Rootworkers, and others. Integral to Skywatchers for more than seven years, she is a vibrant choreographer and co-director with broad and deep personal, familial, and creative Bay Area roots.
San Francisco native Deirdre Visser (she/her) is a curator, educator, visual artist, and woodworker in the city’s Mission District. As independent curator she engages historical context in a deeper understanding of the challenges we face today. Visser is author of Joinery, Joists, and Gender: A Woodworking History for the 21st Century, published by Routledge, spring 2022.
Joel Yates (he/him) was raised here on Ohlone Land (San Francisco). He has witnessed loss and the fight to breathe. A Skywatchers member since 2019, Joel has become a lead creative voice in the performance ensemble. He quickly gained respect as a spoken word artist and an eloquent spokesperson for the power of art to catalyze community. As a writer and community leader sharing his experience and art continuously in the Tenderloin, he hopes that his words help to demolish obstacles and broaden the sights of those they touch.
