Samantha Sheppard:
Hello. My name is Samantha Sheppard and I am an associate professor and interim chair of the Department of Performing and Media Arts. I am delighted to welcome you to the department. In this brief video, I want to give you a sense of who we are and what we do as a group of faculty, students, and staff.
Simply put, our work is located at the intersection of creativity and critical thought. We combine the making of media, films, and live performances, with the study of dance, theatre, film, television, and related forms. We are also really interested in exploring new hybrids between live and mediated art. In short, we are a department where innovation and investigation are celebrated.
We offer a major in performing and media arts, and various minors, in theatre, film, dance, even novel combinations of these subareas. If you work with us, you can study these artforms and learn to make them yourselves. Each year, our distinguished faculty and hard working staff also program and support a series of live performances, film productions, dance concerts, immersive installations, lectures and speaker series, and so much more. But they do not do it alone. Each fall, students are invited to submit proposals for the following year. At PMA, we celebrate hands on learning.
Other videos here provide more information about what performances, films, and events are in the works this year. And you will find a brief virtual tour on the website of the spaces and resources at the Schwartz Center. We hope you will get involved this year as participants or audience members—and most importantly as students in classes that will challenge you to think creatively, critically, and historically about the world around you as you identify and interpret the power of image, sound, gesture, and movement while cultivating your own artistic and scholarly voice.
Please feel free to reach out to any and all of us with any questions you may have about our classes or our events—our emails are on our website.
We look forward to getting to know you and to learning more about your interests at our open house before classes start – this year our open house is on Friday August 18, from 10:30am to 12:30pm.
If you have questions don’t hesitate to come by the Schwartz Center located in Collegetown or email faculty or staff. I’d love to talk to you more, so please don’t be shy and reach out to me directly.
In the meantime, check out other videos, look around our website, and have a great year at Cornell.