(upbeat rock music) - Hi, my name is Daveon Bland.

I'm a comedian, a writer, a musician, a filmmaker.

I specialize in harnessing a radical collective joy.

(funky electronic music) - [Daveon] So laughter brings this sense of joy.

It's also like a form of protest in a way it's also like a radical thing.

If we're able to find some joy out of things then that makes things worth fighting for, makes things worth living for.

When I was 25 I decided I was like I'm gonna do all the things that I never thought I could do.

A few weeks later, I did comedy for the first time and I told myself if I wasn't the worst one at the open mic that I would keep doing it.

And there was a guy in a suit who did a whole set about how different his farts smell.

And I was like, "I'm way funnier than that."

- [Deveon] Yo, House, can I get my keyboard?

Lemme see, this is, this is called.

This is called collaboration.

You know, the dope part about collaboration is literally anybody could do it, while usually one person gets all the credit.

(audience laughs) I think a lot of my process is just like this sort of DIY, punk, "We don't have resources, but we still do it anyway..." sort of thing because for years I didn't think I could.

So now this is like not only me proving other people wrong but proving myself wrong.

Some of my paintings aren't the most intricate, there's limitations to what I can do.

But in those limitations, I find out how to express myself.

And I think there's importance in that, an importance of being able to express yourself with limitations.

(upbeat synth music) I'm a mama's boy.

My mom is a spoken word artist.

And once I started doing standup, it was very natural for me just 'cause I had always seen my mom perform.

I had seen my mom be vulnerable in front of crowds of people.

I think the goal with those two mediums is to make someone feel something deeper than what they currently feel.

- [Deveon's Mom] Collective joy to me means that as a whole, everybody can feel it.

- Yeah.

That's what collective joy means to me because joy is something that is deeply rooted unlike happiness, which is rooted in the belief or the action that something is happening and it's making you happy.

Joy, however, is that thing that you feel that sense of, "Okay, everything's gonna be alright."

Even if you're not happy.

- [Deveon] Everyone has the right to laugh.

Laughter is so radical.

Laughter is so necessary.

And it's important to have spaces where black and brown folks, LGBTQ folks, women, anyone really can feel laughter and participate in laughter without feeling punched down, (crowd laughing) Uproar Performer Arts was founded by Xochi de Luna and myself.

(jazz music) Any, anyone could be offended by anything and that's just, that's just the human experience.

But I do feel like there should be spaces where people can laugh without fear that they will be targeted.

- I'm dating someone.

Who's obsessed with the fact that I'm from Miami.

(audience laughs) - [Deveon] We can never really get to where we need to go if we aren't all going to be able to at minimum laugh together.

They're just trying to stay warm.

That's what that is.

We lived in Cedar, Riverside in the mid to late nineties.

And that, that neighborhood has some of my happiest memories, it has some of my darker memories, but growing up there in the Riverside Plaza apartments, I could see the whole city.

So like being a kid and seeing the city from like a bird's eye view had like a huge impact on me.

It's very small in certain ways but it also views, it still feels humongous.

When I started standup, it was at Palmer's and something about starting standup and Cedar, Riverside felt right.

'Cause as soon as I finished my set, I looked up at my old apartment and it felt like "Yes!"

The kid in me would be so proud.

(upbeat electronic music)