and welcome to another episode of breaking our weekly the show where you can break out i hope to example i'm going to day by the wonderful co host here moni hello everybody and thank you for joining us once again my name is monique dismuke and we are here for another episode of breakout weekly we also have our studio audience panelist the lovely belief that hi tony hi monique it's great to be back for another episode i'm really excited about the guest that we have today already meeting them i think of our family member who is going through that situation where he has a lot of koreans and family members and coworkers all in his mix and you know interracial relationships and he didn't have anything to identify  people are who they are right now so i just felt it was important to write about a subject in india within the time anita we're at right now as opposed to twenty thirty years ago when it might have been a different type by everybody for them and i never heard his side of the story got and the twist was everybody all the characters that were judging them they had issues to deal with like don't judge a book by its cover just released on july first we're at twelve hundred news in about five days four days it's pretty good a lot of power and everybody loves it and it's about two and a half minutes and it has everything you need to see to get you caught up in the drama all right  parents so i watched a lot of movies and i always got lost and failed you know i'll always wished i was in this movie in that movie and as i got older and i had my own family and work to modify i always say if i had opportunity i would go ahead and take it that opportunity came up for me to go to school and go into it and i went you know fully and all the way right away that's great where did you do your training at bay back in san francisco  is a film school it's like a crash course film school instead of going four years or five years like a lot of people it's like twelve hard months six days a week ten hours a day film school and i love a director like what do you foresee coming coming you know in the future is this something that you're going to ask is this something that you're really taking head on like this is what you want to do there is this like a my dad always taught me was that you really want to do something don't have a plan b just do it right and you focus one hundred twenty percent on that on your passion to you make it so every day for the last four years is has been an uphill battle but the great thing about is that i've built so many connections and have done so much so much networking that it's almost as if everything's kind of playing it out perfectly now you know  i'm getting help from all over the place from all over the nation people want to help me promote and just like this t v show you know everything's kind of just fall into place so i'm except me as a gift from god you know just as long as i work hard things will  i also want to ask coming back to the subject matter of hope's identity and i know many of us do have family members or friends who are in interracial relationships in marriages so do you think that it's the point of getting your message out there is to help educate maybe the older generations who tend to have when i feel it tends to be the most difficulty with those kinds of relationships i mean i have for myself i know it witness that a little bit firsthand and how do you reach out to those older generations who seem to be really stuck in those stereotypes and opinions in you know how in what way do you think they're seeing this film will maybe help change their perspective well i think that it will open in the to the fact that obviously the world is different now you have to change with everything and also going into the future this is what this insight is about to be it's going to be a melting pot you don't board don't fight the feeling that is what it is whether you like the map that's a matter of your opinion but it is what it is so i want them to look at the movie and understand why people are in these relationships because it's all about love the two people involved they don't see the color so to the older same thing about guys like michael jordan and stuff like that they don't see they know he's black but it's never an issue when it's michael jordan or somebody like that you know so it's the same way take it as it is you're just two people who love celebrate their love help them along the way given guidance and let the past me the past because we're not living in that world anymore let it go that's great i love that message that's wonderful i look forward to seeing the film i had the green light meter that's awesome back to you tony  hook a little bit about myself i perform a lot in san francisco but i'm only i live in pleasant hill which if you don't know where that is it's a little bit more east it's a bart stop so i'm pretty big deal they're pretty big deal but i always have to commute to san francisco and it's kind of a hassle because it's such a long trip but i love san francisco you guys like san francisco and here yeah ok also my love i love the temperate weather  yeah heat waves come in doesn't matter san francisco stay in stay in real steady yeah yeah we got we got arts and culture yes more please we got the artists and coffee in san francisco yes yum i need it give it to me more yes barista condescend to me i like it oh yes makes it taste better another thing another thing i like about seven cisco i recently learned this san francisco based on a poll of american cities is the smartest city in the united states yet and that's a that's a fact monique it's the study says that fifty percent of residents of san francisco have a college degree so that is that something really special and i started to crunch a little bit of the numbers and it turns out that one out of every two homeless person in san francisco has a culture degree follow the numbers it's there you know i i used to see a homeless gentle man yelling on a street corner and i said just walk right on by that but now i realize this is a free public lecture going on well thank you for your insight captain baseball helmet i appreciate it i'll be on my way thank you cameraman minima quite the reporter how are you doing he gave me a thumbs up it's good for t v but you never hear anything a like positive about american cities you only hear the negative it's always like the five most obese cities and that list doesn't change that much you know it's like a city in texas city in texas city in texas reno city in texas but san francisco not so surprisingly is on the opposite end of the spectrum and it's in one of the top five most fit cities one of the most insane in shape cities so what does that all mean you have a large group of people in san francisco that are in shape and they're working out and you also have a large group of people that are also very intelligent now these two groups are bound to mix together and mash and mold and when they do you get a phenomenon that rises out of san francisco and i like to call it awkward joggers let it sink in yes intelligent working out didn't do you know the type th they didn't they didn't play sports growing up they're too busy studying hunched over a desk they have scoliosis and now they they make decisions and now they make decisions that can literally change you know the fabric of society and you know real losers you know but if you don't know what i'm talking about go ahead grab something soft pillow go to golden gate park find a bench you know set it up there get a big floppy sun hat skin cancer is a real issue we gotta fight it everybody fight it you know it's an issue one you can fight it with the sun hat just take a seat and then just watch the parade of uncomfortable movers oh it's  so delightful i get i just get excited thinking about it right now you know i'm sitting there and i'm like  at least unlike intelligent people they have an excuse you know they're there doing something the best is when you see some tall good looking male model the type and one of his buddies like haziq and throws him a beer and they go was kind of i just remember that being really exciting when i was in that adrenaline yeah really exciting so i want to know where you performing all around the bay area or to san francisco i mean oh yeah if it's by a bar i think it's a great place so growing up were some of your influences comedically i would have to say  cross those are the people where i mean i always saw like you know bill cosby and i mean they're all great but the people that really spoke to me were a generation behind that and you know i just like how they would you know dissect culture and it wasn't just so much observational you know way airplane food in that stereotype you hear about comedians sand just what they see in front of them you know just more culture based stereotypes and so forth while i you know i don't think i was breaking any major cultural boundaries with people who run in a funny manner but i do think as a comedian you have the opportunity to tell the truth unfiltered way and i don't i don't really have anybody censoring me that are saying don't say that or don't say this so that is freeing so i think you can use comedy in whatever form or fashion you want you know if you want to take it to the government you're more than welcome no i it's kind of like a rhythm it helps me keep the rhythm of the joke and it does help like at emphasis but in general i'm pretty upbeat and happy character so but yeah i don't i will i will critical accolades and you've made some lists and things in the local scene so tell us a little bit about that well i've i've made some lists and things one of the things and or less i was i was named one of the ten comedians to watch by s f weekly so what so that that's that's pretty cool i like it made me feel good at site yeah that's great and what do you have in terms of don't really see color snorting going on i mean i would just like comedy to pay the bills so if it's if it's writing performing puppetry like i don't know what i'm for i don't really care just as long as i get to do comedy and be creative and that's what i would like to do you know well let's see if we have any questions or comments from a studio audience members oh right right over here sir yes do you do a lot of impromptu comedy or you just do a lot of stand up don't i kind of have the beginning of the sentence and then the punch line and then i just kind of let myself go like like say a camera man gives me a swirly finger motion and by that i will acknowledge  it's very important so if i'm cursing excessively and to a microphone and the audience is like pulling back from it all probably acknowledge it and soften it and then change the change the atmosphere hopefully yeah i know we've heard from many famous comedians about their having lots of crazy odd jobs that they did as part of their you rise to the top do you have any funny stories or odd jobs that you've done yourself comedy yeah i i was like a for like little league baseball and i don't know any of these kids and the parents would just yeah well you know like eleven or twelve and i'm like you know talking to somebody who's just wanting to become a comedian and you go to open my eyes and that's where anybody can just sign up and get like five minutes of stage time and then you just kind of network you know like chris was saying you start networking with people and when people like you they're like hey you want to come do oh you want me to look at you you want to eat you to start networking with different comedians and and they ask you to come and do their show and showcases and then you just you continue to network and then you see that ideas then you start running your own show and then you start booking your own comedians and then you kind of just become a staple of the comedy community so that's where it goes from there and where can we fantastic town and then this the third wednesday of every month i'm also want to sketch comedy group so much to us and now it's like a variety show called don't watch the show live and it's stage works and sponsored by the pizza company really making it to the top an instructor for at smaller dance studios smaller dance studios that you know something sort of like a dance moms kind of scenario but these dancers were very talented and obviously they didn't want to just do competition shtick they wanted to do something with meaning and i felt inspired to work with them and with their generous time i went ahead and i did my first show we normally perform at holy names university theater we try to keep it in oakland  we try to do is very much a diverse show as possible working on different subject matters and just different inspirational of genres of dance from modern dance to ballet to  jazz we try to do a little bit of a bride of everything so the dance company itself is comprised of dancers who have a lot of different gifts but most importantly they are dancers that have have these gifts that have either been looked over for a variety of reason say that they are not a size double zero or that they aren't they are male dancer that just happens to be short a lot of different or they happen to be a person of color such as myself who were passed over in ballet company after ballet company because they didn't fit the stereotype and what i like to do is bring these dancers together because they do have such strong gifts and performance quality and i give them a platform to perform and also these dancers tend to be people who realize that they have to have a full time job where they have to be a full time student and they still want to be artistic they still want to perform and i enjoy that about them and so we every year we do one big show but during the year we will do smaller venues and perform at different sites in san francisco buckley or wherever that we can perform but we work ourselves up to the big show so we have one big show that's coming up  and when is that our show is titled love peace and war and it's july twenty seventh it's a three section show with repertory work the first section deals with love and pieces that are inspired by love we have a piece that's  first i think the people want to safe space to experience some ideas without feeling like it's being sort of pushed into their face so to speak and what i like to do with my work is i like to make sure that we set them up so that they can feel comfortable to be confronted by different subject matter so in the past when bush was in office we did a few couple of pieces where we communicated about our feelings about the bush administration and of course that really positive feeling for i thought that they were positive from my perspective but you know dealing with war doesn't always come out as positive  but you know we've gone through those things to feeling like we can work on pieces dealing with death and life and then making people feel like they can experience it they can go through the path with us and then they can come to a resolution that feels like they've gained something from that if they've been educated and it feels a little awkward at first that's ok that's what art is about pushes a little bit of buttons but at the same time we want our audiences to feel like they can go away with some dancer your training and what sort of dance techniques have influenced you as a choreographer i started out you know how mothers like to start their little girls off at six years old you know let's take her to take some valley lessons so i did and i was pretty stubborn about it because i realized that i could be good at it but i was also very obstinate about the fact that i was the only african american female in the whole ballet studio so i just kept at it and i said  ok i'm just going to keep dancing even though i'm the shortest little black girl in the whole studio and so forth but at a certain point i decided to go to milton college in oakland and i decided that after being a major for a year and a half that wasn't quite for me yeah dance was really pulling me so i went ahead and i stayed at mills college and i got my masters degree there so i got a message the fine arts and dance choreography i teach at the apple valley college now i'm assistant professor of dance tenured professor and but along the way my path has been ballet to begin and then modern dance and then jazz and then i just realized that i loved teaching and i loved sharing this with other dancers who maybe wanted to perform but had certain obstacles in their way whether it was in the jazz world or in the ballet world or in the modern day i just wanted to keep i wanted to let them know that they didn't have to fit the specific mold and that they could be great performers and i've been very fortunate the dancers i've worked with are just amazingly energetic and incredible and inspiring so i teach full time i c going forward there were many times when i wanted to quit and i'm back i remember always going into the car when my mom would pick me up from the ballet studio and i'd say i'm quitting over i'm not doing this anymore and my mother would just say i've already paid the tuition through the end of the finish but then she also said to me that you made a commitment to do this at the end of the year if you don't feel like following through then we can stop at the end of the year but otherwise you're going to follow through and then you get to the end of the year and they're like ok summer school dance and i'm like ok sign me up for summer and then i'd say i want to quit i want to quit on the only one bubble by my mother's like i paid summer to wish and you know finish off the summer session then you can quit so then i realized that what my mother was basically say which is what my father was saying is that you don't quit something that you love just because someone else says that you can't and yet you do what your heart wants you to do what you are drawn to do answers do this they tend to think that they should just get it all right at the very beginning they're going to fame and fortune look at the internet look at all these competitions and so they forget about the work so i try to instill on them that the work is really where it is that is your that is the golden nugget not that show and that prize and it's the work it's the strain really realizing that you can perform and be on this platform and you can move other people but alas everything starts and ends at the dance studio hello and welcome back to breakout weekly plan iraq don't stop all right just give me count down and we'll go welcome back thanks for joining us breaking our weekly without further ado we have the code of dance group with the street well we'll get our co host in a special guest back up on stage like to give me a chance to let you know where to find him money that was a wind up performance it was it was very eclectic and just it was filled with so much energy and i just want to thank you guys for coming out we're going to give an opportunity for everyone to go ahead and give a shout out so where we can find them their facebook their twitter their instagram how we can find out about their upcoming shows and since met you are standing right next to me we will start with you about or you can find me every third wednesday of the month stage works doing live sketch comedy and without further  twitter slash hopes identity and everything a pop right up you can find coterie dance company otherwise known as coda at coterie dance dot com we will be performing at holy names university theater july twenty seventh we have two shows two p m and eight p m show and we welcome any and all would like to see this live performance the variety of different works well definitely i want to thank all of our guests for being here today and dancers i've you can take another fabulous episode of breakout weekly thanks for joining us