DaVerse Lounge – TEDxSMU 2013
Will Richey is an award winning Spoken Word Artist and creative arts educator who over the last decade has left an imprint across North Texas mixing and melding original poetry performances in workshops, speaking engagements and the production of interactive art events. From school districts to the arts district, drug and alcohol prevention and recovery organizations to ESL Enrichment programs, the heart of his work is found crossing cultures, creeds and races while empowering the voice of the youth as a tool to connect ones identity with personal and collective growth, healing and self-expression.
A University of Dallas graduate and founder of Journeyman Ink, LLC, he is also the father of – “DaVerse Lounge” – an under 21 spoken word open mic event accompanied by live musicians and interactive visual art stations first conceived with the Dallas Theater Center in 2005 and now through partnerships with Big Thought and ArtLoveMagic in the cultural home of Life in Deep Ellum. He is joined on the TEDxSMU stage by creative partner, multi-disciplinary arts educator and lead musician for house band, Melody Memory, Alejandro Perez, Jr., as well as live interpretive painter, David Rodriguez (DrGorilla.com), nationally sought after for his visual art translations. In addition, they are joined by DaVerse Lounge All-Stars, Lorena Watson, a University of Texas honor student and former Carter High School Literary Society President, -topic (A. Maceo Smith graduate and more formally known as Tommy Simpson) recognized by the Dallas Observer as a profoundly unconventional hip-hop poet and local rising star, and Amanda Jackson, a National Scholastic Art and Writing Award Winner, University of Dallas Provost Scholar and member of Dallas’ inaugural Youth Slam Team that competed at Brave New Voices, Chicago. Together they represent not only a multi-generational microcosm of the magical DaVerse Lounge experience, but a strong, collective heartbeat of the creative grassroots in Dallas, Texas, and beyond.