Samantha Sheppard:
Hello. My name is Samantha Sheppard and I am an associate professor and 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 more. But they do not do it alone. Each fall, students are invited to submit proposals for the following year. At PMA, we celebrate experiential learning.
PMA offers wonderful hands-on for-academic-credit learning opportunities. As a student, you can participate in the areas of acting, design, dance, technical production, or be on a backstage crew. Whether you are a major, minor, or not, these learning opportunities can often be used to fulfill academic credit across the university.
This year, student opportunities include the world premiere of ORLANDO'S GIFT, a new play written by Professor and Director David Feldshuh, our annual dance concerts in the Fall and Spring, and, this Spring, the launch of PMA Studios, an ambitious project that will walk students the entire process of creating a film, from inception to premiere. Plus, PMA will be heading back to the Sundance Film Festival for our second annual visit PMA purposeful discovery learning experience.
We look forward to getting to know you and to learning more about your interests at our open house before classes start – this year it is on Thursday August 22, from 1:30pm to 3:30pm. We hope to see you at our events and in our classes. And I personally want to see you at my “Chats with the Chair” events. They are open to not only PMA majors and minors but anyone interested in the department to meet with me and your fellow peers for food and fellowship. Come learn more about the department’s initiatives, give feedback, and talk about everything performing and media arts at Cornell and beyond! The First “Chats with the Chair” will be Friday, September 6 at noon. I’ll see you there with pizza in hand!
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 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 academic voice.
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 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.