An itinerant life…
In Australia, his parents opened a South American handicrafts store. Soon English became William’s favored language and cricket his favored sport. However, after an initial success, the store tried to open new locations during a recession, and the business failed. The family chose to return to Latin America – this time settling in the Dominican Republic.
Seeking a profession that provided a creative outlet, William took night courses in an animation software called After Effects. Soon, he found work helping to create animated programming for children’s television.
William Gadea was born in Lima, Peru, the youngest of five siblings in a middle-class family. In 1969, just months after a left-nationalist military coup d’etat, his parents made the decision to move the family to Australia in search of greater opportunities for their children.
William finished high school in the Dominican Republic before moving to New York City to study film at NYU. After film school, he gravitated towards the theater, writing plays that have been published, anthologized, and produced off-off-Broadway and regionally.
The theatre, of course, is not the most remunerative occupation, so during that time he supported himself with jobs in network news and Wall Street.
In 2012, William founded IdeaRocket, an international commercial animation studio that has created videos for more than 30 Fortune 500 companies. Today, the studio has a production hub in Buenos Aires, and employs freelancers from more than a half-dozen other countries, including the US.
For more than 17 years, William has been a Zen practitioner. In 2015, he took the precepts from Roshi Enkyo O’Hara of the Village Zendo in New York. Today he is a member of the Vientos del Sur sangha in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
In recent years, Will has been exploring his interest in the science, philosophy, and spirituality of consciousness. He has started a YouTube channel called “What is Mind?”
He lives in the Palermo neighborhood of Buenos Aires with his wife, Jennifer, and their cat, Hildy.