Instructors

Dance for the Camera 2011

Renata Sheppard is an independent choreographer, dancer, and educator with a background in visual arts, theatre, and media.

As a recent Fulbright Scholar, she collaborated with the Virtual Reality and Multi Media Park in Turin, Italy. She worked with tele-immersive dance at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and maintains a teaching practice with her unique Yoga/ Laban course.

Her work has been presented in Canada, Germany, Italy, and the US at Summer Stages Dance (MA), Krannert Center, Links Hall, and the Chicago Cultural Center (IL), and at the Dumbo Dance Festival (NY). Her dance film collaboration with Paolo Armao, The Wait of Gravity, will be screened at the 2011 San Francisco Dance Film Festival and S.L.A.M.'s Motion in Media Film Festival in New York.

She has an MFA in Dance from UIUC and attended the Laban Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies on full scholarship. She has studied screen dance with Renée Wadleigh, Ellen Bromberg, and Diedre Towers.

Videos available through Vimeo

Website

"Renata Sheppard was an ideal candidate in every area of the MFA Program at the University of Illinois.  Her work in the program set a benchmark of sorts particularly in the areas of technology and Dance for Camera.  Renata established a record of distinction while here that carries on and is now evidenced by her substantial professional growth and creative productivity.  This is particularly true of her work as a video dance artist.   Renata continues to excel making remarkable screen dance works for which she frequently and quite capably serves as director, choreographer, cameraperson, and editor.  Renata is thoroughly professional, an imaginative and inspired choreographer, video director, and teacher.  She is highly intelligent, highly motivated and is, in addition, a beautiful dancer."

Renée Wadleigh

Professor

University of Illinois Department of Dance

---

Jacopo Landi is a video editor and camera operator with experience in collaborative film projects and documentaries.

In 2009, he earned a Bachelor of Science in Multimedia and Interdisciplinary Art, Music and Entertainment from the University of Turin. He later received his Masters in Video,
Effects and Compositing at the Virtual Reality and Multi Media Park (VRMMP).

He now works as a video editor at VRMMP, also collaborating with Lumiq Studios as a compositor and special effects creator. He assists with pre-visualization cinema film projects at VRMMP’s research laboratory, Art-Science-Allies (ASA) Lab where he also teaches pre-professional video shooting and editing courses.

In addition to his work and study, he enjoys experimenting with different visual languages in contemporary art and has participated in international competitions and art exhibitions within the national art gallery circuit.

Information available through Celeste Network

---

Paolo Armao is a Sound Designer with extensive experience in producing audio contents, storytelling, managing projects and developing customized workflow solutions. He works as Sound Editor at Lumiq Studios and as Audio Researcher at Allied-Arts-Sciences (ASA) Lab, developing real time audio systems and creating contents for Multimedia and Audiovisual projects. He teaches Sound Editing and Sound Effects Design at Virtual Reality and Multi Media Park in Turin, and has been lab instructor at University of Turin and Polytechnic of Turin.

His work Il Naturalista was selected at the Cannes Festival (2009) and Virtual Electronic Poem premiered in 2010 at the Electronic Music Foundation in New York.

He trained at the University of Turin and the School of Sound in London in addition to seminars held by David Sonnenschein.

Information available through Vimeo

"Paolo Armao has an inquisitive approach to his creative process that makes him an inspiring collaborator.  He is sensitive but unafraid to make choices that reflect his clear point of view and comes into every project with energy and an open-mind.  Technically skilled but not a slave of technology, he is always ready to restructure the problems in order to propose different solutions. Being an avid learner, he has a natural gift for teaching, knowing just when to give information and when to hold back and let the student take the leap of faith on their own."

 Andrea Valle

Researcher/Musician

Department of Fine Arts, Music and Performing Arts (DAMS) CIRMA - Centro Interdipartimentale di Ricerca sulla Multimedialità e l’Audiovisivo Università di Torino

 

Return to Top