News

Byline: Lindsey White

Performing and Media Arts

Memories, tech intertwine in student play ‘Benchmark’

Cornell Chronicle

“Benchmark,” a play by Information Science Ph.D. student Anna Evtushenko about a woman who relies on technology to preserve her memories, will stream online March 26 and 27.

Performing and Media Arts

Undergrad women artists of color lead ‘Virtual Vibrance’ shows

A&S Communications

Three collaboratively crafted online performances led by undergraduate women artists of color will be offered Oct. 30–31 by the Cornell University Department of Performing and Media Arts (PMA), Cornell Ambassadors for Media and Performance (CAMP), and Graduate Researchers in Media and Performing Arts (GRMPA). The series, titled “Virtual Vibrance: Making, Shaking, Breaking Performance,” is funded in part by the Cornell Council for the Arts.

Performing and Media Arts, Psychology

New play shares emotional journey of young Pakistani woman

A&S Communications

As a psychology double major at Cornell University, Mahnoor Azim Tiwana ’20 has a keen interest in studying the human psyche. Inspired by her second major in performing and media arts and minor in fine arts, Tiwana turned an artistic lens on the study of the mind for her original play “keepsakes.”

Performing and Media Arts

“Fabrication” theme weaves through virtual 10-Minute Play Festival

A&S Communications

The festival serves as a laboratory for plays written by undergraduate and graduate students from across the university.

Performing and Media Arts

“Fabrication” theme weaves through virtual 10-Minute Play Festival

Department of Performing & Media Arts

Communing with the dead, navigating new parenthood, and exploring Y2K teen pop stardom and the Black genius behind it are among the themes of five student-written short plays debuting online October 8–10 for the Cornell University Department of Performing and Media Arts’ (PMA) 8th annual 10-Minute Play Festival. The festival, hosted by PMA and the Graduate Researchers in Media and Performing Arts (GRMPA), serves as a laboratory for the development of plays written by both undergraduate and graduate students from across the university.

Performing & Media Arts

Live student theatre festival goes online

A&S Communications

When a shortened on-campus spring semester necessitated the cancellation of in-person events, theatre students in the Cornell University Department of Performing and Media Arts (PMA) did what they do best: they got creative. The team behind the popular semiannual student-run Festival24 quickly changed course and produced an online iteration of the event: Festival24.0.

Performing & Media Arts

Sci-fi thriller “The Nether” questions ethics in virtual worlds

Department of Performing & Media Arts

Note: The Saturday, March 14, performance of "The Nether" has been cancelled. The Friday performance will take place at 7:30 pm as scheduled.

Performing & Media Arts

“Transformation,” collaborations with guest artists inspire annual Locally Grown Dance

Department of Performing & Media Arts

Student dancers of the performing and media arts department will explore “the politics of expression in the dancer’s body” in this year’s Locally Grown Dance, according to the event page. Each of the four dance pieces will incorporate the idea of transformation — either literally, figuratively or both. 

Performing and Media Arts

Stratford wins essay award from Northeast Modern Language Association

Aoise Stratford, lecturer in the Department of Performing and Media Arts, recently won the CAITY (Contingent/Adjunct/Independent Scholar/Two-Year Caucus) Essay Award from the Northeast Modern Language Association.

Performing & Media Arts

Community-based play imagines future of climate change in Ithaca

Performing & Media Arts

“The Next Storm” (November 15–23, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts) is a community-based play by the Cornell University Department of Performing and Media Arts (PMA), Ithaca-based theatre company Civic Ensemble, and playwright Thomas Dunn. Godfrey L. Simmons, Jr., Civic Ensemble co–artistic director and PMA senior lecturer, directs this wry comedy.

Performing and Media Arts

PMA 10-Minute Play Festival set for Oct. 3-5

Performing & Media Arts

Animate grocery store items, a haunted 500-dollar bill, and the provocative case of actor Jussie Smollett are among the varied topics explored in this year’s 10-Minute Play Festival from the Cornell University Department of Performing and Media Arts (PMA) and the Graduate Researchers in Media and Performing Arts (GRMPA). The annual festival, now in its seventh year, serves as a laboratory for the development of student-written plays and presents students with a range of opportunities in theater.

Performing & Media Arts

“The Wolves” spotlights complex dynamics of girls’ athletics

Performing & Media Arts

Rehearsing and training for “The Wolves” by Sarah DeLappe (September 26–28, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts) has been an exercise in stamina and endurance for Cornell University senior Sabrina Liu. “Being in ‘The Wolves’ has pushed me out of my comfort zone not only in terms of the way that I normally act and perform, but also in terms of what my body can do physically,” said Liu.

Performing & Media Arts

Professor Ellen Gainor speaks at London’s National Theatre

Performing & Media Arts

This summer, London’s famed National Theatre is staging Githa Sowerby's 1912 play Rutherford and Son, which is on the Theatre’s list of the top 100 plays of the 20th century. Prior to the play’s opening, the National Theatre invited J.

Performing & Media Arts

“An Evening at the Caffe Cino” pays homage to famed 1960s NYC theatre

Performing & Media Arts

Considered the birthplace of Off-Off-Broadway—theatre that is more experimental and less commercial than mainstream staged productions—the Caffe Cino was a haven for budding playwrights and performers, as well as for the queer community, in New York’s Greenwich Village from 1958–1968. From April 18–20, 2019, “An Evening at the Caffe Cino” pays homage to the historic venue in the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts’ Black Box Theatre.

Performing & Media Arts

Heermans-McCalmon competition winners present their work

Performing & Media Arts

The winners of the Department of Performing & Media Arts’ Heermans-McCalmon undergraduate writing competition will be honored Friday, March 22, at 4:30 p.m. in the Class of ’56 Dance Theatre, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts.

Interdisciplinary

Symposium welcomes artists, public to explore feminist performance

Cornell Chronicle

The history of feminist performance is one of radical storytelling, of showing how the personal is political, and of carving out spaces in which women can feel, in the words of performance artist Holly Hughes, “at last, fully human.”An interdisciplinary symposium at Cornell March 15-16 will explore what this history can teach us about the future of feminism, and how we can use performance to reflect the changes we want to see.

Performing and Media Arts

Performing and Media Arts to host interdisciplinary symposium

On March 15–16, the Department of Performing and Media Arts will host an interdisciplinary symposium titled “Feminist Directions: Performance, Power, and Leadership.” Over the course of the symposium, internationally acclaimed artists Tisa Chang (Pan Asian Repertory Theatre), Holly Hughes (University of Michigan), Leigh Fondakowski (Tectonic Theatre Project), Rhodessa Jones (Cultural Odyssey), Peggy Shaw (Split Britches), and Lois Weaver (Queen Mary University of London) will join local artis

Performing & Media Arts

Question authority, beware false prophets in “Tartuffe”

A&S Communications

A deceitful, pious man abuses his professional status to defraud and swindle trusting citizens in “Tartuffe,” written by French playwright Moliere in 1664. This enduring play, which challenges ideas of authoritarianism and hypocrisy, is brought to life by Cornell students in a performance venture at the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts February 14–16. ​

Performing & Media Arts

Mini Locally Grown Dance concert at the Schwartz Center

The Department of Performing and Media Arts (PMA) presents its annual Mini Locally Grown Dance concert Nov. 29-Dec. 1 at the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts.PMA senior lecturers Jumay Chu and Byron Suber direct and each contributes original choreography. The concert also features a combined piece choreographed by 16 students in Chu and Suber’s dance composition course; a duet from Deanna Myskiw ’18; and a piece choreographed by visiting lecturer Nic Ceynowa.

Performing & Media Arts

“The Awakening of Spring” sheds light on chasm between youth and adults

Performing & Media Arts

Since its 1906 debut, “The Awakening of Spring,” by German playwright Frank Wedekind, has often been criticized and sometimes banned for its controversial subject matter, including sexuality, violence, and mistrust between generations.

Performing & Media Arts

Conference on contemporary theatre features artists, scholars from around the world

Performing & Media Arts

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Performing & Media Arts

Post–nuclear fallout with a dark comedic flavor and a “Simpsons” twist

Performing & Media Arts

Directed by Jayme Kilburn, a PhD student in Cornell University’s Department of Performing and Media Arts, “Mr. Burns, a post-electric play” runs at Cornell’s Kiplinger Theatre in the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts April 27–28 and May 4–5.

Performance

'Baltimore' confronts racial tensions on college campuses

Performing & Media Arts

A racist caricature drawn on a freshman dorm room door is the catalyst that precipitates intense discussions and confrontations about race in “Baltimore.” The play by Kirsten Greenidge, which runs April 28 to May 6 at Cornell’s Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts, references the riots in Ferguson, the Black Lives Matter movement and the deaths of Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin,

Performing & Media Arts

Dance concert integrates video and live performance

Performing & Media Arts

When: March 23, 24 & 25, 7:30 p.m.Where: Kiplinger Theatre, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts