The Department of Performing and Media Arts leads students from all disciplines through artistic and scholarly explorations of live and mediated forms of creativity and expression. Students are challenged to think creatively, critically, and historically about the world around them as they identify and interpret the power of image, sound, gesture, and movement and cultivate their own artistic and academic voices.
Cornell Cinema unveils diverse, collaboration-driven spring lineup
A&S Communications
Welcome to PMA!
We are excited to welcome you to Cornell or welcome you back! All of us here in Performing and Media Arts (PMA) look forward to helping you find opportunities to make your time in Ithaca more enriching, whether you are a budding performer, a seasoned auteur, an aspiring critic, or just a curious observer. Please use the page linked below as a springboard to the wealth of opportunities available to you in the Schwartz Center:
PMA Events
Feb
21
Saturday
01:00 PM
Aster Film Festival
Schwartz Center for Performing Arts
Film Forum
Feb
22
Sunday
01:00 PM
Aster Film Festival
Schwartz Center for Performing Arts
Film Forum
Feb
24
Tuesday
05:30 PM
PMA Open Auditions for the 2026-27 Academic Year
Schwartz Center for Performing Arts
Black Box Theatre
Feb
26
Thursday
05:30 PM
PMA Open Auditions for the 2026-27 Academic Year
Schwartz Center for Performing Arts
Black Box Theatre
Feb
27
Friday
01:00 PM
Chats with the Chair
Schwartz Center for Performing Arts
220
Mar
09
Monday
11:40 AM
PMA Links
PMA News
Five A.D. White Professors-at-Large on campus this spring
Named for Cornell’s first president, the program sponsors scholars and public intellectuals in the life sciences, physical sciences, humanities, social sciences and the arts and this semester features several connections with the College of Arts and Sciences.
Ladies of Manila Sound
Join PMA for Ladies of Manila Sound Presented by PMA 1183 FWS: Hip-Hop’s Global Vibrations (NYC, LA, Southeast Asia). This event will take place on Zoom on Monday, March 9, from 11:40 am - 12:55 pm. There will be a short DJ turntablist performance, followed by a Q&A session.
Join on Zoom: https://cornell.zoom.us/j/97871338956?pwd=jkVtNRwYV9DOw8MtoeQ9Sf5vYgyLQY.1
PMA/LSP Associate Professor Karen Jaime Quoted on the Political Expression of Bad Bunny’s Halftime Performance
PMA/LSP Associate Professor Karen Jaime has completed a set of media appearances discussing Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime performance. Jaime was featured in a televised broadcast on WNYW’s local Fox 5 News station, during a segment titled "Halftime Show Audience Estimated to be More Than 135 Million Viewers." Jaime was also quoted in the article “Bad Bunny's Ford pickup a nod to automaker's relevance in Puerto Rico” by Jamie L. LaReau, originally published in the Detroit Free Press.
PMA Ph.D. Candidate Rejoice Abutsa Joins Post-Screening Conversation with Filmmaker Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine
On Wednesday, February 18, at 6:00 pm, Cornell Cinema will host a screening of Memories of Love Returned, a documentary by filmmaker Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine. PMA Ph.D. Candidate Rejoice Abutsa will join Mwine for a post-screening conversation.
PMA Senior Lecturer Theo Black to Participate in Two Environmental Storytelling Events
PMA Senior Lecturer Theo Black will be participating in two environmental storytelling events this month. First, he will be hosting a panel called “Changed Waters,” on February 20, at the South Yuba River Citizens League’s (SYRCL) Wild & Scenic Film Festival, in Nevada City, California. Black will also be participating in a BIOphelia event on February 22, at the New Swan Shakespeare Center, in Irvine, California.
PMA Ph.D. Student Isabel Padilla Carlo Publishes Paper in “Conversations Across the Field of Dance Studies”
PMA Ph.D. Student Isabel Padilla Carlo has published a paper called ““Si Tu No Sabe Kokobalé” and The Reclamation of Collective Memory as a Praxis of Liberation” in Conversations Across the Field of Dance Studies, a journal published by the Dance Studies Association. The paper is included in Volume 44 of the journal, entitled “The Caribbean as a Pole of the African Diaspora.”
PMA Professor Mendi Obadike Gives Artist Talk in Sound Arts Lecture Series
PMA Professor Mendi Obadike and AAP Professor Keith Obadike gave an artist talk in the Sound Arts Lecture Series for the London College of Communications' program CRiSAP (Creative Research in Sound Arts Practice) on January 22. The event took place over Zoom.
Composer Michael Abels, famous for work on Jordan Peele films, to visit March 6-7
Events include film screenings, panel discussions and a concert by the Barbara & Richard T. Silver Wind Symphony.
Land Acknowledgement
Cornell University is located on the traditional homelands of the Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' (the Cayuga Nation). The Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' are members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, an alliance of six sovereign Nations with a historic and contemporary presence on this land. The Confederacy precedes the establishment of Cornell University, New York state, and the United States of America. We acknowledge the painful history of Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' dispossession, and honor the ongoing connection of Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' people, past and present, to these lands and waters.
This land acknowledgment has been reviewed and approved by the traditional Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' leadership.