Our very own Shey Rivera will be the main-feature for the last ProvSlam of the summer on July 20th at the Main Stage!

In case you didn’t know, Shey is the artistic director of AS220. Shey’s job consists of engaging with art and culture as a catalyst for social change through community engagement, cross-sector partnerships, and urban renewal.

When Shey isn’t making change happen here, she also serves on Congressman Jim Langevin’s Art & Culture Advisory Committee, Mayor Elorza’s Art & Culture Transition Team, the Downtown Providence Parks Conservancy’s Advisory Committee, the Department of Art, Culture & Tourism’s Public Art Committee, and Providence Cultural Equity Initiative’s Cultural Think Tank. Shey is a co-founder of Las Tenoras poetry collective, the founder of the Latinx arts and music magazine Crudo, and the producer of the performance series Luna Loba and Fluxus Moon Cabaret.

In addition, Shey makes art. Her art spans several genres and a myriad of topics, from home to capitalism to queerness to magic. Shey’s writing manages to hold impossible contradictions in the same hand. The poems have a movement to them that demands attention– one moment it drips, languid, and the next the river has filled and you’re in a rapid. They carry an affect that follows you. It’s sticky, it’s feral, it’s raw, but there’s a tenderness to it that welcomes you in and clears a space to sit.

Feel free to waltz on over to http://www.sheyrivera.com/bio/ if you want to know more– or, just come on out on Thursday and see for yourself.

$5 for adults, $1 for youth. Starts at 7:30pm, there will be an open mic so bring something to share if you’re feeling it.

You can find out more about ProvSlam here: http://www.provslam.org/