2nd Thursdays in Dodge Alley: ELENAH

Thursday September 10, 2026 | 5-8pm

At Dodge Alley (Turk & Larkin St.)

Free to attend | No registration required

$15 vouchers for food/drink at nearby businesses first come first serve

2nd Thursdays at Dodge Alley welcomes the return of ELENAH to the Tenderloin. The genre-defying musical project of Bay Area artist (and longtime Hyde St. Studios engineer) David Saenz invokes a multitude of Latin American and Afro-diasporic sounds–reggae, cumbia, bolero, hip-hop–to conjure high-energy, socially conscious songs that speak to resilience, migration, love, and begs listeners to get up on their feet and dance. 

David Saenz first brought his ascendent Spanish-language, reggae-forward band ELENAH to Tenderloin for TLM’s inaugural season of concerts in Dodge Alley in 2022. Since then, the band has released several collections of original music and performed widely around the Bay Area and beyond, becoming mainstays of several local music scenes, but noted for their musical rigor and high-octane performances. The Los-Angeles born, Ecuadorian-American Saenz has a knack for synthesizing a truly multicultural set of sonic influences into catchy, danceable songs that speak to migration and resilience as naturally as love and happiness. Afro-Carribean grooves marry to Latin American styles with a punk-rock delivery. Learn more at https://elenamusica.net/bio .

Free, outdoor, music-centric happenings at a once notorious Tenderloin alley began in 2022 through a collaboration between TLM, the Tenderloin Community Benefit District, and longtime residents of the alley. These events were some of the first “Sounds of the Tenderloin” programs, a series of events “animating the TL’s under-sung cultural history through live music” that began with a grant from Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, continued with more support from the State of CA’s Museum Grant Program, and now exists as a monthly block party at Dodge Place. Since those initial shows, the alley has benefited from substantial community investment, including a Community Challenge Grant project that brought two stunning murals to the alley and an ongoing grant through the TLCBD to bring monthly music to the Alley along with free food/drink vouchers to spend at adjacent businesses. TLM is thrilled to return to programming Dodge Alley and to grow the vibrancy of this amazing community space and truly urban venue.