Cornell University

The Department of Performing and Media Arts leads students from all disciplines through artistic and scholarly explorations of live and mediated forms of creativity and expression. Students are challenged to think creatively, critically, and historically about the world around them as they identify and interpret the power of image, sound, gesture, and movement and cultivate their own artistic and academic voices.

As a PMA major, students take courses in four rubric areas: Creative Authorship, Design, Embodied Performance and History/Theory/Criticism (see further descriptions below). They will also specialize by pursuing a sequence of courses in the rubric area of primary interest to you. Production laboratories provide practical experience building, running and managing theatre productions, dance concerts and film shoots. Across these courses and labs, our majors benefit from the synergies between the study and practice of dance and movement, live theatre and media arts.

The Ph.D. graduate program in performing and media arts at Cornell University offers students an interdisciplinary environment in which to pursue critical studies of various dramatic cultures, theatrical traditions, film and media productions, and expressive behavior in multilingual, intermedial, and globalizing performance contexts. The program is located within the Department of Performing and Media Arts and comprises distinguished faculty from across the humanities.