Kate Insolia
Artistic Director of Urbana Dance Company
Kate Insolia, is the Owner and Artistic Director of the Urbana Dance Company in Urbana, IL, USA. Insolia has been performing, creating, directing, and teaching dance for over three decades. She has extensive experience in working with both adults and children. For the last 15 years, Insolia has taught dance classes, designed curriculums, directed, choreographed for schools and local dance communities, and created her own work in Champaign-Urbana. Insolia is passionate, pragmatic, and systematic in her teaching approach. Centered in her teaching philosophy are students building and strengthening relationships, community, self-awareness, and confidence. Insolia founded the Urbana Dance Company performance group in 2012. Believing that artists can transcend conventional wisdom and create eloquent solutions, the Urbana Dance Company offers new productive and vibrant modes of being and seeks to understand the power of performance as a vital means for political action and social transformation. UDC’s choreography illuminates issues of oppression such as genocide, racism, classism, and sexism with the intent to end these oppressions. In search of humanity, the company uses both drama and humor to create a space where transformation can occur.
Insolia received her B.A. in Dance from Sarah Lawrence College and her M.F.A in Dance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
KYLE AYERS
Guest Artist
Kyle Ayers is a multi-disciplinary body-based artist originally hailing from Champaign, Illinois who holds an MFA in Dance from the University of Iowa and a BA in Theatre from Illinois State University. He is currently an Instructional Assistant Professor of Dance at Illinois State University and previously served as the Director of the Dance Arts Conservatory for the Champaign Park District, a public dance program that offers training in various genres and styles. As a driven pedagogue, he pays particular attention to healthy anatomical function and longevity of the dancing body. His work and research are primarily situated within classical Modern and he is deeply invested in the principles of Limón Technique. He has
been privileged to attend a Limón Teachers Workshop which allowed him space to explore the technique with master teachers Kurt Douglas and Kristen Foote through the Limón Foundation in New York City.
Additionally, Kyle teaches Jazz dance classes in which he endeavors to blend the vocabularies and stylings of classical and vernacular jazz with the Africanist aesthetics that lie at the heart of the jazz
movement tradition.
Kyle was selected as one of the inaugural Emerging Choreographers for NewDANCEfest in 2017, an intensive sponsored by Eisenhower Dance Detroit where he was invited to devise and stage his original
choreographic work “Tremor” on the participants. Utilizing his background in theatre performance, Kyle's choreographic style often uses character work, idiosyncratic patterns, and exaggerated pedestrianisms to develop narrative structures for the stage. As a performer, he has had the opportunity to work with many choreographers across the country including Sara Semonis, Darby Wilde, Gregory Merriman, Jennifer Harge, Michael Richman, Tiffanee Arnold, Brian McGinnis, BAIRA/MVMT PHLOSPHY, Jim Moore, Greg Lagola, and Carol Abohatab.
Recently, Kyle has presented research and led workshops at the 8
the Annual Somatic Dance Conference and Performance Festival in Geneva, NY and the 9th Annual Somatic Dance Conference and Performance Festival in Port Townsend, WA, both hosted by renowned pedagogue Bill Evans. In September 2022, he was invited to New Orleans for WGIcon, the official convention of Winter Guard International. There he gave a presentation titled “Feedback as a Tool for Empowerment and Motivation” which discussed practices of self-reflexivity in teaching and considerations for providing students with corrections and
critique in ways that leave them feeling ready to succeed.
Kyle’s other interests include instruction and visual design for marching band. He has worked extensively as a color guard director and designer, coaching several rural teams in central Illinois to multiple winning
titles. His choreography has been seen at Unity High School, Hoopeston Area High School, St. Joseph-Ogden High School, and Illinois State University. He has participated with Drum Corps International in the
Open Class division in 2011, and most recently was a cast member with the Bluecoats Indoor winter guard in 2018, who performed in the WGI World Championship Finals in Dayton, Ohio.
URBANA FINE ARTS CENTER
Directed by Luciana Rezende
A former professional ballet dancer, Luciana Rezende studied under the tutelage of internationally respected teachers, as Sulamith Messerer, Elena Kunikova, Martin Putke, Giselle Santoro and Eugenia Feudorova. After finishing her degree at the University of Brasilia (Brazil), Ms. Rezende came to the US on a full scholarship granted by the Joffrey Ballet School (NY).
As a dancer, she has performed principal roles for several professional ballet companies in Brazil and in the US, including Ballet of Brasilia, Brazil; Garden State Ballet, NJ; Mid-Illinois Ballet, IL and Chicago Festival Ballet, IL.
Ms. Rezende has been teaching classical ballet for over twenty years in the Champaign-Urbana area, and guesting with dance schools in the Midwest. As a ballet director, she has staged full-length ballets and conducted ballet classes for students age 2 to adult, levels beginner to professional.
​Ms. Rezende has privately coached students to successfully medal at international ballet competitions.
Luciana Rezende also was the Director for the ballet program at the Montessori School of Champaign-Urbana and is as guest teacher for the Faubourg Ballet Theatre (Chicago, IL) and Central Illinois Ballet (Peoria, IL).
