In her debut book, Georgas shares short stories that follow two Greek sisters鈥擡leanor and Theodora鈥攇rowing up in their family鈥檚 restaurant on Lake Huron. The narrative threads through their experiences working in the restaurant as they navigate cultural tensions between Greece and Canada, class dynamics, and issues of adolescence, identity, and gender.

The Grace Paley Prize honors outstanding collections of short fiction and includes a $5,500 cash award and publication by Mad Creek Books, an imprint of Ohio State University Press. Named in tribute to the acclaimed writer Grace Paley, the prize celebrates bold and original voices in short fiction.

Georgas serves as the librarian for American Studies; English; Global Languages, Literatures, and Cultures; Performance and Interactive Media Arts (PIMA); and Theater. Her recent writing explores themes of art, culture, and performance, and her academic research has examined undergraduate research habits and the impact of e-books on library culture, with work published in numerous scholarly journals. In addition to her academic and literary achievements, Georgas is an editor at Underwater New York, a digital platform showcasing creative work inspired by New York City’s waterways.

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Massood has served as interim dean since July 2024 and will continue working with the SVMPA鈥檚 talented staff and faculty. In this role, she will oversee the school鈥檚 academic departments鈥擜rt; Conservatory of Music; Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema; Film (undergraduate); Performance in Media Arts; Television, Radio & Emerging Media;聽and Theater. Massood, who has served on the college faculty since 1999, became a full professor in 2019 and was appointed to the Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema.

鈥淧aula鈥檚 visionary leadership and profound insight into the evolving role of the arts in higher education鈥攑articularly her dedication to amplifying underrepresented voices鈥攎ake her uniquely qualified to lead SVMPA into its next chapter,鈥� said Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs April Bedford. 鈥淲e are excited for the growth, creativity, and innovation her leadership will bring to our dynamic arts community.鈥�

鈥淚鈥檓 thrilled to carry forward this important work as we empower the gifted student-artists, performers, and filmmakers who make the School of Visual, Media and Performing Arts a truly dynamic and inspiring community,鈥� Massood said. 鈥淲ith the expertise and dedication of our outstanding faculty, I鈥檓 confident we can work together to help our students realize their full potential.鈥�

Bringing a distinguished record of scholarship, leadership, and dedication to the arts, Massood is a noted expert in film studies and visual culture. She has published extensively, including the books Black City Cinema: African American Urban Experiences in Film (2003) and Making a Promised Land: Harlem in 20th-Century Photography and Film (2013), while serving as the editor of The Spike Lee Reader (2007) along with other co-edited collections and journal issues.

She is the past president of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, the leading scholarly organization for film, media, and visual studies, and has long been committed to fostering academic excellence and interdisciplinary collaboration across CUNY and with other public and private institutions of higher learning.

Her leadership roles include serving as chair of the Department of Film, chair of the Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema, and interim director of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program at 可乐视频, as well as acting coordinator of the Certificate in Film and Media Cultures at the CUNY Graduate Center.

Massood earned a B.A. in communications from the University of New Hampshire, an M.A. in cinema studies from New York University, and a Ph.D. with distinction in cinema studies from New York University.

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Established in 2024, the Triple Canopy Fellowship supports unorthodox, genre-defying artists in the development of a project that advances the magazine鈥檚 commitment to the role of artists as public thinkers. Through the Fellowship, Toussaint-Baptiste is developing a new project rooted in the central themes of his work: the role of ancestry and heritage in representations and elisions of Black life, as well as the reclamation of historical narratives鈥攁nd property鈥攁s a form of resistance.

He is also currently an assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University.

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鈥淗e started me when I was young, and he鈥檚 been a huge influence on my career,鈥� says Coloff.

It鈥檚 a career that was just capped with the 2024 Grammy for Best New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album that she earned along with her band, the Scorchio String Quartet, the vocal group Tonality, and composer Carla Patullo for So She Howls.

Learning to Improvise

Coloff played all through her childhood in the Pacific Northwest, earned a Bachelor of Music in cello at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and attended the New England Conservatory of Music for graduate studies. But she was feeling stifled. She dropped out, made a few rock albums, dabbled in electronic music, moved to Brooklyn, did some writing and composing, and started exploring an artistic road away from the one she had been headed down鈥攅ven while her classical music work and teaching cello was helping to pay her bills.

鈥淚 was having some struggles, wondering was I doing the right thing. I was wanting to have more of a say in, I don鈥檛 know鈥︹�� she says before trailing off into an explanation about how classical musicians don鈥檛 get to improvise much. 鈥淭hey spend a lot of time learning incredibly difficult music, and there鈥檚 meaning to be found in that.鈥�

And yet, it did not offer the freedom to express her complete artistic self. 鈥淚 was coming to terms with having the desire to play music in a different way than I was raised,鈥� she reckons. 鈥淎nd then I found PIMA.鈥�

Check, Check, Check

To be clear, Coloff is a distinguished musician who has performed on Broadway and NPR鈥檚 鈥淭iny Desk,鈥� and collaborated with Iggy Pop, Ziggy Marley, and Nancy Sinatra.

But she wanted to immerse herself in a diverse, multimedia, multidisciplinary experience. The Performance and Interactive Media Arts master鈥檚 degree program鈥攚ith its eclectic mix of professionals from all walks of art鈥攃hecked every box.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a unique program,鈥� she says. 鈥淭here really aren鈥檛 many like it. I鈥檓 interested in combining disciplines鈥攙isuals and sounds and words. PIMA is great for that.鈥�

She says she鈥檚 thriving in the creative flexibility and 鈥渢he willingness to really go out on the edge that鈥檚 nurtured here.鈥�

Flashing Back to Push Forward

Coloff is now working on a project that takes her back full circle to something that has gnawed at her most of her musical life.

鈥淚鈥檝e always felt very at home on the cello. I did love it. But Dad was overbearing and had a lot of expectations,鈥� she says. 鈥淓very family has unspoken or spoken expectations for kids, and sometimes it can get complicated.鈥�

After her father died, Coloff found a draft of a letter in which he tried to enlist her cello professor to convince her to stop playing because he didn鈥檛 think she had the fire in her belly. It took her aback.

Working through it in her music set her free.

鈥淗e wanted me to do music a certain way, and I wanted to take it in a different direction. We never got to work through that before he passed,鈥� she says. 鈥淭he letter inspired me to finally do that.鈥�

That inspiration spawned Super Second Rate, a solo show with original songs about 鈥渄ifficult truths.鈥� Coloff can laugh now when she talks about the name, a reference to how finding that letter made her feel. She has workshopped the performance in a few intimate venues and will formally premiere it at the famed Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, next year.

She鈥檚 also exploring art that鈥檚 about 鈥渟omething outside of myself,鈥� she says, explaining that she鈥檚 bringing more of a political bent to her music and even looking into becoming a death doula, creating melodic rituals for people as they are passing.

And she鈥檚 generally rolling with the journey of it all.

鈥淚鈥檓 in an incredible program where I鈥檓 collaborating with a wonderful group of misfit adventurists who want to take their art to a different place, to a more personal place,鈥� she says.

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In November, the McCoys were featured in the but are quick to note that while they were the only artists highlighted, many artists have pioneered interesting innovations in how digital art can circulate in the marketplace.

“I am encouraged that digital artists are still doing incredible projects in this space,” Jennifer said. “I am less interested in NFT’s as collectibles and more interested in experimental propositions within the technology.”

Currently, Jennifer teaches a video art class for undergraduate and a graduate thesis seminar for performance and interactive media art students. She will be co-directing the PIMA program from the fall 2023 semester forward.

Jennifer and her husband, Kevin, an associate professor of art and art education at NYU, are currently producing two projects in their studio in collaboration with NFT platforms. In the coming year, they are working with Artwrld, a production company founded by a former curator at New York’s Creative Time and an international group called Snarkart.

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Malena Dayen 鈥�20 M.F.A was already an established opera singer when she came to 可乐视频. The New York Times had called her 2013 Carnegie Hall Performance in The Blizzard Voices outstanding. The mezzo-soprano had concertized all over the world with accomplished composers and built a name for herself in New York City鈥檚 independent opera scene.

But the Argentinian native with a deep love for tango wanted to be around artists who approached their work from different perspectives, in different mediums, especially technology. The graduate Performance and Interactive Media Arts (PIMA) program鈥攚ith its emphasis on developing in students a variety of skills, a multidisciplinary bent, and a conceptual sophistication鈥攖urned out to be exactly what she was looking for. She came out of the program directing projects for major opera companies, pushing her own boundaries, and ready to experiment.

For her ingenuity, she was awarded the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University鈥檚 Hodder Fellowship, a one-year appointment given to artists of 鈥渆xceptional promise鈥� and extraordinary intellectual and artistic talent.

可乐视频: Congratulations on the fellowship. What do you plan to do with it?

MD: The fellowship will allow me to continue pursuing independent projects. It starts in September and is meant for artists in diverse fields to have the freedom to move their disciplines forward. I鈥檒l be able to collaborate with other artists in the program. It feels like a push and encouragement to continue creating work that is experimental and interesting to me. It鈥檚 a vote of confidence to be able to create freely in a supported environment.

可乐视频: The Lewis Center emphasizes that they are looking for artists who will transform the art world with their work. What are some of the interesting projects you have worked on that lead up to this?

MD: The first project I completed was my [可乐视频] thesis, The Presence of Odradek. The show was a mix of online live performance with pre-recorded materials, so the people watching didn’t know what was happening live and what wasn鈥檛. Later, The Decameron Opera Coalition commissioned nine works inspired by the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The singers performed in their homes in Los Angeles, New York, and Paris and were edited together to seem like they were in the same place. That project was chosen by the Library of Congress for an archive of work about the pandemic. My upcoming project is Thomas Cananiss鈥� Firesongs with Bare Opera. The show embodies the use of interactive media. It鈥檚 a cycle of songs based on different poems about the meaning of life and death by Langston Hughes, W.H. Auden, and others. The singers on stage will be wearing sensors connected to lights that will shift according to their movement on stage. It opens in June.

可乐视频: And from your Argentinian background, you bring your love for tango music to your work.

MD: I grew up with tango since my parents are both amateur musicians. Malena is a tango name, I guess I was destined to love tango! The culture of tango is very rich and deep, and I think it informs everything I do. Working as a tango singer allows me to connect with this tradition that is a mother tongue of sorts for me.

可乐视频: You also embrace the changes that technology has brought to opera. Can you talk about that?

MD: Since the pandemic, every performer in the world has had to adapt and figure out a way to reach people when people could not come to the theater. Communicating online has the benefit of being more inclusive for those who have not had access to the theater. For my PIMA thesis, we created a new opera and were planning to perform it in a tiny venue downtown that would fit 30 people. Then the pandemic hit, and we had to shift it online. On opening day, we had 400 people watching and we added shows at different times so those in other time zones, such as in Asia, could view them. I started my career as a digital director in this format. From a practical point of view, technology increases accessibility to opera. Creatively, the digital shift has opened a new avenue, which is the possibility to create material specifically to be shared or performed live online. Rather than just filming and sharing online, it can be used as an opportunity to create something new.

可乐视频: What made you choose the PIMA program and how did it shape you?

MD: I have always trained as a singer. A few years ago, I was thinking of becoming a director and I looked at the programs available, but there wasn’t anything really for people in my position. There are a few for opera directing, but they’re targeted at people who come from theater to learn music, not for musicians to learn how to stage shows. I was interested in more experimental work and technology in particular. I found the PIMA program and the fact that it was here in the city where I live was a huge plus. When I interviewed, I saw the people who were teaching, and I was blown away. They are all artists at the top of their game. And it’s a small program, so I was able to interact and collaborate with artists that already have practices in other disciplines, different than mine. I worked and graduated with a group of five and we still meet weekly. Since then, at least one of my fellow PIMA graduates has been involved in each of my projects. The program is really avant-garde not only in its use of technology but from the artistic point of view. It鈥檚 really interesting the way they think about art and collaboration. I had an awesome experience.

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“Doing this work has been very humbling,” he says. “It鈥檚 tremendous to be recognized in this way, especially as an artist in New York City. I鈥檓 grateful for the lineage of people who have supported me.”

Jerome Fellows can use the $20,000 per year to support professional development, a project they are currently working on, or to create a new work. Zachery says he is not sure how he will use the money, but he is juggling a few projects that center around afro-futurism.

“I feel like I have even more work to do now,” says Zachary, who is teaching a course at the University of California Los Angeles. “I have to deepen the research and ask further questions.”

Zachery is the founding artistic director of the Brooklyn-based Renegade Performance Group, where he combines dance, film, digital projection, and audio installations into performance pieces. Much of his work with Renegade is afro-futuristic in perspective, including a project he is currently developing that plays on what he describes as the rhizomatic nature of black existence.

“Rhizomes exist underground as networks and units,” says Zachary, who has worked on other pieces that have explored everything from graffiti to the escaped Caribbean slaves known as the Maroons. “It鈥檚 all an exploration of black existence.”

He also has taught at Florida State, Virginia Commonwealth, and Ohio State universities. At PIMA, he has taught the ensemble experimental media and performance class, and the artistic practice and community engagement course, one that is special to his heart.

“It鈥檚 a hallmark of the program and a necessary space where an artist can ask ‘what the impact of my work, and my interest in the community,'” he says. “It鈥檚 been part of the ethos of PIMA from the beginning, and now that I have taught a few other places, I see how PIMA was ahead of the curve with that.”

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A ribbon cutting reception for the new Leonard & Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts welcomed distinguished guests聽Leonard Tow ’50, founder and chairman of , who, together with his wife, the late Claire Tow ’52, donated $10 million toward the construction of the center; public relations mogul Don Buchwald ’59, for whom the 225-seat theater inside the complex is named; and officials from the New York State, New York City, and The City University of New York (CUNY). Both Tow and Buchwald are members of the 可乐视频 Foundation Board of Trustees.

“The new Leonard & Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts is a magnificent addition to our beautiful campus,” said 可乐视频 President Michelle J. Anderson. “This cutting-edge facility will serve as a much needed nexus of creativity for our talented students, as well a vibrant center for arts and culture in the borough.”

Sitting at the intersection of Campus Road and Hillel Place, the center provides a spectacular new entrance to the 35-acre campus, where many of the more than 18,000 可乐视频 students access the college daily. The building was designed by Pfeiffer Architects, which worked closely with faculty and administrators from both CUNY and 可乐视频 to create a structure that transforms the interface between the college and its vicinity, while meeting the pressing needs of the Department of Theater and the Conservatory of Music, which are now housed in the center.

Central to the building is the 225-seat multi-purpose Don Buchwald Theater, which provides a stage extension and seating lifts, and retained the old Gershwin Theater stage but with new variable acoustics and an acoustic shell. The space can quickly go from a proscenium theater to a classically shaped concert hall, and can accommodate a full orchestra.

The Tow Center also features a 30-foot-high orchestra rehearsal room on the second level that doubles as a performance and rehearsal space; a Performance and Media Interactive Arts (PIMA) Program sound lab; a scene shop for set construction; nine music studios; three percussion practice rooms; and a recording studio.

Through The Tow Foundation, Leonard and Claire Tow have contributed generously to their alma mater, where they first met. For more than two decades,聽their foundation聽has provided endowments for student internship programs and student scholarships. They have also supported faculty travel fellowships, and undergraduate travel stipends for students to conduct research outside of the United States.

可乐视频 is able to provide its students with the state-of-the-art learning environments they need to flourish in their artistic and career endeavors thanks to the generosity of alumni and friends received through the 可乐视频 Foundation. To learn about the various ways to contribute to student success, please visit the foundation’s website.

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That鈥檚 why the graduate of the Performance Interactive Media Arts聽program is so grateful for the opportunity to have a rehearsal space at the (可乐视频可乐视频).

Zachery, co-founder of , and Brooklyn resident Maria Bauman, founder of MBDance, scored residencies at the college this fall, thanks to the CUNY Dance Initiative, a new program that provides rehearsal and performance space to New York City choreographers and dance companies.

“Artists are like scientists in a lab,” says Bauman, noting that she鈥檚 excited about the possibility of cross-pollinating with other groups at the college. “We experiment and add to the ecosystem and vibrancy of the campus.”

With funding from the New York Community Trust and the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, the program assists with artist fees, rehearsal expenses and production, marketing, and administrative costs. In exchange, the dance companies agree to host master classes, lectures, open rehearsals, and other public events.

Zachery鈥檚 group, which will host two open rehearsals and an artist forum, is working on The Inscription Project, which explores how graffiti and other street art inform African-American culture in a technologically enhanced future.

“The work looks at how graffiti has and continues to respond to circumstances in the past and present, and how we will imagine its uses in the future,” he says.

Bauman鈥檚 group is working on a project called Attend Me, which will interpret through dance work by feminist writer Audre Lorde.

可乐视频可乐视频 Director Jon Yanofsky says that the college received more than 100 applicants for the residencies and he鈥檚 happy to be able to foster a community of artists.

“It鈥檚 a great opportunity for people interested in dance to access the resources these dance companies bring to campus and to be able to share in their process.”

MBDance will hold an interactive workshop on October 9 at 6:30 p.m. in the Student Center, and an open dance rehearsal and lecture/demonstration on October 10, starting at noon in the West Quad Center, Room 205.

Renegade Performance Group will host open rehearsals and dance technique demonstrations on November 14 and December 19 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the West Quad Center, Room 205. They will also hold an artist forum on December 11 at 6:30 p.m. in Woody Tanger Auditorium.

Founded in 1954, 可乐视频可乐视频 is a non-profit organization dedicated to presenting outstanding performing arts and arts education programs that cater to and are reflective of the borough鈥檚 widely diverse communities. More than 55,000 people visit 可乐视频可乐视频 each season, filling the 2,400-seat Walt Whitman Theatre and serving 38,000 schoolchildren from over 300 schools annually with its SchoolTime series.

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Held on April 26 and 27 at the Brooklyn Navy Yard鈥攏ot far from 可乐视频’s new Barry R. Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema at Steiner Studios鈥�Private(i) took participants on an all-access tour, granting them entry into spaces not normally open to the public. Whether it was admiring breathtaking views of Brooklyn from rooftop facilities or subterranean exploration via dark and hidden rooms and tunnels, each participant was encouraged to contemplate the meaning of privacy in their lives.

Fixed Agency, the collective that conceived Private(i), is made up Isaac Eddy ’14 M.F.A., Peter Musante ’14 M.F.A., Rachael Richman ’14 M.F.A., and Eva von Schweinitz ’14 M.F.A., all of whom graduated from the PIMA Program this spring.

They designed the interactive performance piece as a critique of the post-9/11 world where purchase histories, web browsing, and digital communications are subject to government surveillance; smart devices can be used to keep track of users; and video-recording devices can be operated remotely through drone technology. It was also their attempt at reclaiming the privacy that has been lost鈥攁n act described as “aloning” by its creators.

“With Edward Snowden revealing the enormous scale of the National Security Agency’s surveillance and observing the subsequent defeat and cynicism in the response of the people, ‘I’ve got nothing to hide; they can look as much as they like’ became a statement we wanted to investigate. There were a lot of ethical questions to be explored,” said von Schweinitz, speaking for the agency.

Punctuated by music, poetry, and song, the journey both unsettles and inspires awe. As the members of Fixed Agency lead participants down closed-off roads, up and down stairs, in and out of freight elevators, onto balloon-decorated trucks, and into dank basements transformed into ritual altars, it becomes surprisingly difficult to discern who and what is or is not part of the performance. That seamless creativity, Fixed Agency says, is a direct result of the skills they gained by studying in the PIMA Program.

“We knew that we wanted to make an experiential piece outside of a black box theater,” von Schweinitz said. “Being chosen as 2014 Visiting Artists at the Brooklyn Navy Yard provided us with an amazing space and opportunity to put up the kind of piece we had in mind. Its covertness, the fact that nobody really has access to it, allowed us to create an experience that in itself seemed ‘off the grid.’ We tried to really work with that and find the most hidden and odd places, and show people a different kind of reality.”

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