Renata Marjory Sheppard

Education

2009       CMA in Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analysis , Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies, NYC
2007       MFA in Dance University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)
2004       BA in Interdisciplinary Studies, The College of William and Mary, Virginia

Employment/Teaching

2008-present    Company Member, RTG Dance, Chicago, IL
2007-present    UIUC Department of Computer Science technology/dance collaboration with tele-immersive environments, project coordinator and choreographer
2007-present    Free lance video editor
2007-2008  Company Member: Margi Cole Dance COLEctive, Chicago, IL
2004-present    Arts Enter Cape Charles, local non-profit art center/dance teacher (summer) 2004-2007   Graduate Video Media Coordinator for the Department of Dance UIUC
2004-2007  Video Crew head at UIUC, teach Camera Basics and Video Editing

Workshops, Festivals, and Residencies

2009       Objects in Motion Festival, The Building Stage, Chicago, IL
2009       DanceBridge, Choreographic Residency, Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, Feb-April
2008       Dance 4 Camera Workshop, Chicago Dancemakers Forum (Diedre Towers)
2008       LinkUp Choreographic Residency, Chicago, IL Links Hall, April 4-6, 2008
2007       Dumbo Arts Under the Bridge Festival, Brooklyn, NY

White Wave Dumbo Dance Series, John Ryan Theatre and outdoor show

2006       Summer Stages Dance Choreographic Fellowship, Concord, Massachusetts.

Created a new work under the mentorship of John Jasperse, David Parker, Richard Colton.

2006       Dance Omi International Collective: 3 week residency with 10 selected international artists, Hudson, NY
2005       American Dance Festival, Durham, International Choreographer’s Commissioning Program performer, Durham, NC
2004       Dance 4 Camera Workshop (Ellen Bromberg, Bob Locklear) U of Utah

Honors, Awards, and Grants

2009       Community Arts Assistance Program grant (CAAP) Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs
2007       Moe Family Dance Award, UIUC
2007       Kate Neal Kinley Fellowship/$20,000 scholarship for independent study
2007       Lemelson-Illinois Technology Scholarship Finalist
2007       Academy of Entrepreneurial Leadership (AEL): Idea Bounce Contest winner
2007       Graduate Travel Conference Grant, UIUC
2006       Emerging Choreographic Voice award, Department of Dance, UIUC
2006       AEL Grant for Graduate Scholars: new course/ Business Tools for Artists
2006       National Society of Arts and Letters, 1st place performance award, Urbana,IL
2005       UIUC Department of Dance Summer Study Scholarship
2004       High Honors awarded for undergraduate Thesis at William and Mary, VA
2004      William and Mary Book Award for outstanding contribution to department

Conference Publications

2009       Renata M. Sheppard, Klara Nahrstedt. Merging Research Modalities: TED (Tele-immersive Dance) Collaboration Offers a Model for Performance-Based

Research and Creative Development. SIGCHI International Conference, Boston, MA.

2008       Renata M. Sheppard, Mahsa Kamali, Raoul Rivas, Morihiko Tamai, Zhenyu Yang, Wanmin Wu, Klara Nahrstedt, Advancing Interactive Collaborative Mediums through Tele-immersive Dance (TED): a Symbiotic Creativity and Design Environment for Art and Computer Science, ACM International Conference on Multimedia (MM’08), October, Vancouver, B.C.

2008      Renata Sheppard, Lisa Wymore, Klara Nahrstedt, Ruzena Bajcsy. TED: Human Computer Interface, nominated for Most Innovative Video Award, AAAI 2008, Chicago, IL

2008       Klara Nahrstedt, Ruzena Bajcsy, Lisa Wymore, Renata Sheppard, Katherine Mezur,  Computation Model of Human Creativity in Dance Choreography, Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) Spring Syposia, Stanford, CA.

2007       Renata Sheppard, Wanmin Wu, Zhenyu Yang, Klara Nahrsted, Lisa Wymore, Gregorij Kurillo, Ruzena Bajcsy and Katherine Mezur, TEEVE: New Digital Options for Collaborative Dance in Geographically Distributed Tele-immersive Spaces, Proc. of ACM Multimedia (MM’07) (video demo paper), Augsburg, Germany.

  1. Nahrstedt, R. Bajcsy, L. Wymore, G. Kurillo, K. Mezur, R. Sheppard, Z. Yang, W. Wu  “Tele-immersive Environments with Creative Choreography”, ACM Workshop on Supporting Creative Acts Beyond Dissemination, associated with the 6th ACM Creativity and Cognition Conference, Washington, D.C.

Choreographic Publications

2008       “So Low”, solo presented at the Goose! Show, Silverspace, Chicago, IL
2008      Consilience, Links Hall LinkedUP Performance (April) and Chicago Cultural Center (December)
2007       MFA Thesis Concert: I Like New, Nyquil
2006       All the Little Live Things, Summer Stages Dance, Concord, MA
2006       Commissioned to choreograph for Shakespeare’s As You Like It, UIUC
2005       universe on its back, site specific dance,Siebel Center for Computer Science
2005/2006  Work selected for juried student show, UIUC Studio Theatre (The True Story of Ordinary Men with Extraordinary Dreams of Olympic Glory)

Dance for the Camera Publications

2007       Silo a dance for camera solo, presented at Moving Images Film Festival, UIUC
2007       here and t(here) a video installation of the tele-immersive interface synchronized with 2-D video, presented at ACM MultiMedia, Augsburg, Germany

Performance

2009       “Fours” RTG Dance, Links Hall, Chicago, IL
2008       “Written on the Body” Dance COLEctive, Columbia College Dance Center
2007       “I See A” Stephan Koplowitz, ICA Museum site specific dance, Boston, MA
2004-2007  UIUC Concerts: Chamecki/Lerner, Merce Cunningham, David Parker/Sara Hook Dances, Erika Randall, Philip Johnston, Rebecca Nettl-Fiol, Linda Lehovec, Stephan Koester
2005/06    American College Dance Festival Gala PerformanceNorth Central Region
2005       American Dance Festival, International Choreographer’s Project Showcase
2003/04/06 Summer Stages Dance, (MA): Edisa Weeks, David Parker, John Jasperse

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