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We congratulate Professor Nick Salvato on his recognition as a Stephen Russell Family Teaching Award recipient.
/news/professor-nick-salvato-honored-prestigious-stephen-russell-family-teaching-award
We are thrilled to announce the publication of a new article, "Cambodian American Listening as Memory Work," by PMA graduate student Brian Sengdala, in the independent, peer-reviewed journal American Music.
/news/now-published-american-music-cambodian-american-listening-memory-work-brian-sengdala
Karen Jaime (‘97) Assistant Professor of Performing and Media Arts and Latina/o Studies has been awarded a 2023-2024 Schomburg Fellowship and the Faculty Champion Award for Junior Faculty presented annually by the Graduate School Office of Inclusion and Student Engagement and the Graduate and Professional Student Diversity Council at Cornell.
/news/karen-jaime-receives-both-schomburg-fellowship-2023-2024-and-cornell-faculty-champion-award
This summer, 101 students in the College of Arts and Sciences will take part in groundbreaking research on campus with 61 faculty as part of the Nexus Scholars Program.
/news/nexus-scholars-program-expands-research-opportunities-101-students
PMA 2800 presents...Acting Showcase. May 8th 6-7:30 p.m., SB21 Black Box Theatre, Schwartz Center
/news/pma-2800-presentsacting-showcase
Join the Art Beyond Cornell and the Prison Reform and Education Project (PREP) for a screening of the PMA Professor Bruce Levitt's film in collaboration with the Arts, Justice and Safety Coalition: Before Time / After Time. A 45-min film exploring the paths leading to incarceration and the challenges of reentry, followed by a facilitated discussion.
/news/film-screening-time-after-time-may-3-730-pm
Call for Actors: Peerless written by Jihae Park. A student thesis PMA production
/news/call-actors-peerless-written-jihae-park
Join us Thursday, May 4 at 5:45 pm for a devised play A MINGLED YARN spun from the works of William Shakespeare, guided by PMA faculty Theo Black and Bruce Levitt along with PhD student Sara Stamatiades (Literatures in English) in the Black Box Theatre, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts. Free and no tickets required.
/news/mingled-yarn-devised-play-may-4th-545-pm
Adam Shulman is majoring in performing & media arts and in fine arts.
/news/i-became-confident-i-would-be-able-settle-anywhere-world
PMA Professor Christine Balance was recently quoted in the NBC News Article entitled "The chronically online third culture is redefining Asian America" by Sakshi Venkatraman
/news/pma-professor-christine-balance-quoted-nbc-news-article
In this episode, Gary and Chris meet with Andy Colpitts and Michael Wookey to discuss their upcoming production of the Family Copoli, a post apocalyptic burlesque and repopulation play.
/news/pma-podcast-episode-46-andy-colpitts-michael-wookey-family-copoli
“This rise is significant largely because there’s been a dearth in an underserved audience,” says PMA Professor Samantha N. Sheppard says on NBC News on Asian and Black representation on the rise in both film and TV.
/news/professor-samantha-n-sheppard-nbc-news
The recipient of the 2023 award, which is given to the best student essay in theatre or performance as selected by a PMA faculty committee, is PhD student Oona Cullen (Department of Literatures in English), for the essay “Black Queer Cosmologies, Sonic Geographies, and Embodied Entanglement in Tarell Alvin McCraney’s The Brother/Sister Plays”
/news/winner-announced-2023-marvin-carlson-essay-competition
A screening of student films for the Spring 2023 semester.
/news/student-film-screening-spring-2023
The Department of Performing and Media Arts (PMA) is excited to announce that we are seeking two talented and dedicated individuals to join us in the roles of Production Manager and Lighting/Video Supervisor.
/news/production-manager-and-lightingvideo-supervisor-positions-now-open
A trio of short films showing the pleasures – and perils – of rural life for LGBTQ+ people will show April 26 as part of the Rural Humanities Initiative in the College of Arts and Sciences.
/news/out-here-film-event-shines-light-rural-lgbtq-life
The 10th Annual Centrally Isolated Film Festival (CIFF) is happening on April 29th-30th.
/news/centrally-isolated-film-festival-ciff-2023
“From the Big Red to the Red Carpet” featured Scott Ferguson ’82 and Michael Kantor ’83, Emmy-winning producers of HBO’s “Succession” and PBS' “American Masters” series.
/news/dr-fauci-succession-peek-lives-two-alumni-filmmakers
To the Academy is a multimedia performance work inspired by Kafka’s short story, A Report for an Academy, and the ancient Sanskrit treatise on performance, The Natyashastra. The piece weaves a tale about an ape couple rehearsing a music hall show for a group of scholars. As the apes grapple with how to entertain their audience, they stage a sexy romp through contemporary culture wars and collapsing institutions. The one-hour performance is followed by discussion with the audience. Content Warning: moment of nudity.
/news/pmaps-colloquium-shanti-pillai-marc-gomes
Writing "Miss Evers’ Boys:" Factual Fiction and Ethical Truth - Phi Beta Kappa, Spring, 2023, Lecture with PMA Professor David Feldshuh
/news/writing-miss-evers-boys-factual-fiction-and-ethical-truth-phi-beta-kappa-spring-2023-lecture
"Campfire" (directed by Professor Austin Bunn) won the Best LGBTQIA+ Short Award at the Cleveland International Film Festival.
/news/campfire-wins-best-lgbtqia-short-award-ciff47
PMA Professor Jeffrey Palmer will host a retrospective showcasing his short film "Ghosts" and other shorts on Kiowa and Native Youth on Saturday, April 8th, at 1:30 p.m. as part of the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival.
/news/professor-jeffrey-palmer-retrospective-finger-lakes-environmental-film-festival-april-8th
In this episode Gary and Chris meet with PMA's new Stage Manager Sarah Bauch, to discuss her recent arrival at Cornell, life and educational experiences that led to choosing a career in stage management, her commitment to Theatrical Intimacy Choreography, as well as her hopes and aspirations working on future productions here in the department of performing and media arts.
/news/pma-podcast-episode-45-introducing-pmas-new-stage-manager-sarah-bauch
Out Here: 3 Short Films about Rural LGBT Life
Written & Directed by PMA Associate Professor Austin Bunn
"A theme of the Harrison College Scholar Program is that our students are independent but not isolated."
/news/new-college-scholars-research-climate-health-care-legal-interpretation
The Department of Performing and Media Arts is pleased to announce the winners of the 2023 Heermans-McCalmon Dramatic Writing Competition.
/news/congratulations-2023-heermans-mccalmon-dramatic-writing-competition-winners
Producers of "Succession" and "American Masters" on PBS will screen films and talk about their careers.
/news/alumni-filmmakers-share-stories-big-red-red-carpet
From the Big Red to the Red Carpet: A two-day visit with alumni filmmakers Scott Ferguson ‘83 and Michael Kantor ‘83
/news/big-red-red-carpet-two-day-visit-alumni-filmmakers-scott-ferguson-83-and-michael-kantor-83
“Heading into Night: a Clown Ode on…(forgetting),” featuring Cirque du Soleil clown Daniel Passer, who developed the play with Professor Beth Milles, premiered this month.
/news/clown-play-captures-complex-emotions-cognitive-loss
PMA presents 'The Family Copoli: a post-apocalyptic burlesque and repopulation play'. Written by Andy Colpitts (book/lyrics) and Michael Wookey (music).
Blending realism and abstraction, this full-length play explores the future and the past, technology and humanity, solitude and family. Written, translated from Russian, rewritten, and directed by Anna Evtushenko, PhD candidate in Information Science.
March 24th, 5:00 p.m., March 25th, 2:00 p.m. & 7:30 p.m.
and March 26th, 2:00 p.m., Black Box Theatre | Get Tickets
Adam Shulman '23, the creator of "Nature's Play: An Invasive Performance," has spent a year tending to a degraded thicket near Cornell University's North Campus. The result of Shulman's efforts will become an immersive, eco-theatrical installation to reconsider the effect of human apathy and give voice to the grove's residents. The installation will feature a sculptural set design woven from uprooted invasive plants and collected debris. The on-site performances will draw parallels between biological and social networks to challenge perceptions of land ownership, standards of natural care, and the origins of invasive species.
/news/natures-play-invasive-performance
The Critical Moves: Performance in Theory & Movement Series presents:
“A Love Supreme, a conversation with photographer Lola Flash”
Lola Flash (Photographer)
Thursday, April 13th
5:00-6:30PM, Film Forum
Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts (430 College Avenue)
As a longtime figure in New York's downtown art scene, Lola Flash’s artistic practice focuses on the intersection of race, sexual identity, aging, and social justice activism. Flash directly engages those who are often deemed invisible, as their work is an introspective assessment of their life experience. Their art and activism are profoundly connected, fueling a life-long commitment to visibility, and preserving the legacy of LGBTQIA+ and communities of color worldwide. Flash has work included in important collections such as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, MoMA, the Whitney, the Museum of the African American of History and Culture and the Brooklyn Museum. They are currently a proud member of the Kamoinge Collective, and on the Board of Queer Art. For further information on flash, please visit: Lolaflash.com
Part of the Critical Moves: Performance in Theory & Movement Series, this event is funded by a Humanities Impact Grant, with generous support and co-sponsorship from the Department of Performing and Media Arts.
FANCY DANCE announces the arrival of a major directorial talent: Erica Tremblay. Her unflinching exploration of marginalization uses a mystery narrative as a springboard for an oblique coming-of-age story, lovingly and luminously enacted by Gladstone and Deroy-Olson. Tremblay’s juxtaposition of settler violence against the strength of Indigenous communities offers a nuanced account of the human costs of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women epidemic and the possibilities of healing for those left behind. This event is sponsored by the Department of Performing and Media Arts, American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program (AIISP), and the Cornell Cinema.
/news/special-film-screening-fancy-dance-film-erica-tremblay
In this talk, Ricardo Montez discusses the challenges of writing a historical narrative about the popular artist Keith Haring. Most stories about the artist fail to address Haring’s desire for and contact with Black and Latinx bodies with any depth, choosing instead to privilege a vision of the great, white male artist who made “art for everybody.” What does it mean to make racial production a central part of art historical analysis? How do traditional forms of historical narrative fail to capture the political complexities of cross-racial contact? How does one demonstrate a deep respect for the skill and brilliance of an artist while giving scope to political ambivalence toward productive ends?
/news/contact-and-transmission-queer-historiography-artist-keith-haring
The Department of Performing and Media Arts at Cornell University was fortunate to host three distinguished choreographers, Heidi Latsky, Olive Prince, and Mark Haim, as guest-artists-in-dance for PMA's dance program in 2022 and 2023.
/news/heidi-latsky-olive-prince-and-mark-haim-recent-guest-artists-dance-pma
Congratulations to PMA Professors Kristen Warner and Samantha N. Sheppard on receiving the 2023 Society for Cinema and Media Studies Distinguished Service Award! We are proud to announce that they were a part of the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies editorial team that earned this notable recognition.
/news/pma-professors-kristen-warner-and-samantha-n-sheppard-awarded-2023-society-cinema-and-media
Jung Joon Lee, Associate Professor, Theory and History of Art and Design, Rhode Island School of Design; Fellow, The Society for the Humanities, Cornell University, 2022-23, In this talk, Jung Joon Lee explores trans-Pacific intimacies engendered through collaborative art projects, namely QueerArch (2019), focusing on spaces of exhibition as sites generating affective ruptures with the official histories, memories, and kinships of East Asia that maintain a strong hold on both sides of the Pacific. The title of Professor Lee's talk is On Trans-Pacific Collaboration and Repair: Notes from QueerArch (2019) and Queer/Feminist/Praxis (2021). Co-sponsored by the History of Art, Asian American Studies Program, FGSS and LGBT Studies Program.
March 10th, 3:00 p.m., Film Forum | Register in advance for Zoom option
Daniel Passer creates work as a performer, writer and director. For over a decade, Daniel has been a lead Clown and Comedy Conceptor for Cirque du Soleil and Dragone Entertainment. Daniel currently is on the faculty of the Theater School at CalArts where he is also the Associate Director of Performance. He has taught Commedia/Clown/Improvisation at Moscow Art Theatre, Cirque du Soleil, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Brown University, Harvard, Cornell, CalArts, Trinity College, The Second City and was a Master Acting Teacher for The Edward Albee Theatre Festival and the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts. Daniel was the U.S. representative at the International Commedia dell’Arte Festival in Italy and a graduate of U.C. Berkeley and The A.R.T. Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard. For more, please visit danielpasser.com.
Moderated by HEADING INTO NIGHT collaborator and PMA Associate Professor Beth F. Milles
March 13th, 5:00 p.m., Film Forum
Read a review of the play And If I Don't Behave Then What, directed by PMA Professor Beth F. Milles. "Beth F. Milles stages the play with striking sensitivity, which presumes that sensitivity can strike. And it can. And it does here. " - Steven Leigh Morris, stageraw.com https://stageraw.com/2023/02/02/do-what-youre-told/
/news/review-pma-professor-beth-f-milles-directed-play-and-if-i-dont-behave-then-what
PMA Professor Samantha N. Sheppard was recently featured on The Film Comment Podcast.
/news/pma-professor-samantha-n-sheppard-was-recently-featured-film-comment-podcast
Professional Directions: A Conversation with Documentary Filmmaker – David Siev (Bad Axe)
/news/professional-directions-conversation-documentary-filmmaker-david-siev-bad-axe
Daniel Passer (Cal Arts/Cirque du Soleil) will be doing a clown workshop on Saturday, February 18th, at the Schwartz Center. Participants will learn from a world-renowned clown Conceptor, performer, and educator (performance instigator).
/news/heading-night-clown-play-forgetting-clown-workshop-daniel-passer-cirque-du-soleilcalarts
BACKSTAGE CREW NEEDED!
Did you know you can get academic credit for working backstage on a show?
The Department of Performing and Media Arts is producing a major dance concert in March and a musical in April and May in our beautiful Kiplinger Theatre. Both shows need crew, in all positions: Light and Sound board operators, dressers, stage crew, and follow-spot operators.
Crew members will receive one credit of PMA 2610: Production Crew Laboratory. Do one show for one credit or both shows for two.
The schedules are attached. For more information or to express your interest, email Pam Lillard at PSL1@cornell.edu.
Don’t delay! Positions will be assigned on a first-come basis.
Join us for a Professional Directions: A Conversation with Gabriella Mosses on Thursday, Feb 16 at 5pm in the Film Forum, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts. (430 College Ave.)
/news/professional-directions-conversation-gabriella-moses
Locally Grown Dance (LGD) is an annual dance showcase performed by PMA dance students.
March 9th, 10th, and 11th, 7:30 p.m., Kiplinger Theatre
A staged reading of a work in progress, Soul Mining is a short meditation on emotion, connection, and sensation as we consider the entirety of our lives and the eventual trajectory of the natural world. More of an allegorical or abstract representation than anything else, the work follows four unnamed characters as they puzzle over what they have been left with and what they have left behind. Written by John Colie.
February 18th, 7:30 p.m., Black Box Theatre
Dotun Ayobade is an Assistant Professor of Performance Studies and African American Studies at Northwestern University. He studies how embodied forms of popular culture shape the meaning of community, justice, and activism in late twentieth century West Africa. The title of Professor Ayobade's talk is Ethnographies of Serious Play: Sensing the Ludic in a Women’s History of Afrobeat Music
February 17th, 3:00 p.m., Film Forum
Professor Kristen Warner responds to the 11 awards nominations for “Everything Everywhere All at Once” with caution: "we are still on an incremental set of progressions that can still only favor one racial group at a time."
/news/oscars-2023-meaningful-diversity-not-finally-here