Hi, my name is Beth Milles and I’m an associate professor in the Department of Performing and Media Arts. I wanted to take this opportunity to welcome all of you to our department and to Cornell. I hope that you are well. I hope that you are excited to be here, as we are excited to work with you.
Under any normal circumstance and semester, this would be an open house that was live in person, sitting in the Schwartz Center, where all of our spaces are housed, and we would share with you opportunities in dance, performance, exploration, writing, adaptation, filmmaking, media studies, film studies, performance studies, and you would get to meet my wonderful colleagues. But for right now, I wanted to encourage you to look at our website, to reach out to all of us, to learn about the offerings. There will still be many opportunities to participate, to make work.
One of the things that the pandemic has presented to us is the opportunity and the encouragement to explore new platforms and new ways of sharing work. Obviously, we don’t know for sure what will happen this year. In a way, in our department of PMA, we are usually prepared for such adaptation at the last minute, and improvisation. We have several performance events that you can read about on our website. And I look forward to answering any questions, as do my colleagues, about anything you are interested in. We welcome students from a variety of backgrounds, and experience in performance. If you have not acted or performed or written or directed, please come to the department. Take classes. Audition. We want to participate with you. We have a large participation of students and this year, more than ever, we are focused on student engagement and student filmmaking and student performance and installation engagement and live and outside. As this time evolves we will know more.
Please do not hesitate to reach out. We look forward to knowing you, to working with you in our classes, to sharing your work on stage. Because there’s so much stress in daily life right now, come here and feel that you are included and welcome to share your story and your work. Not just with us, but the Cornell community at large. Thank you so much, and I look forward to meeting you in person soon.