Steve Dixon

Steve began his career working in a range of roles within the creative industries. As an actor he worked with leading directors including Nicholas Hytner, Steven Berkoff, Michael Blakemore and Richard Eyre; and with experimental theatre companies such as Incubus and Lumiere & Son. During the early 1980s he worked for three years as a stand-up comedian at the original Comedy Store and Comic Strip in London, and appeared in the comedy series The Young Ones and The Comic Strip presents.

His theatre directing work includes productions in Mexico and Latvia, and in the UK at The Lowry, the ICA, and The Place; and he has produced an opera for Opera North.

Steve has directed five independent films including large-scale movies produced in community contexts, and has won an Industrial Society directing award for corporate video. He was Director of Training for Glasgow Film and Video Workshop, and has directed television programmes for Anglia and Granada Television, where he also produced an arts series.

Before joining Brunel, Steve was Associate Head (Teaching and Learning) of the School of Media, Music and Performance at Salford University (1991- 2005), and Head of Performance, and Director of Performance Research. He initiated major curriculum developments including co-founding the first honours degree combining Media and Performance (1992) and creating the first UK module in Stand-Up Comedy (1994) with alumni including Peter Kay.

Research Interests

Steve is an internationally renowned researcher in the use of computer technologies in the performing arts, and was co-director of the AHRC-funded Digital Performance Archive, which established the largest online searchable database in the field.

His 800-page book Digital Performance (MIT Press, 2007) is the most comprehensive study to date, providing a detailed history and analysis of the field and proposing bold new theoretical arguments. It has won two international book awards including the Association of American Publishers Award for Excellence in Music and the Performing Arts.

Steve has also published extensively on subjects including theatre studies, film theory, digital arts, Artificial Intelligence, and pedagogy in journals including TDR, CTheory, Arts and Humanities in Higher Education and Performance Research; and four of his articles have been republished in academic Readers.

Teaching Activity

Performance and New Technologies/Digital Performance; Acting; Directing; Cultural Theory.

Steve is director of The Chameleons Group (established 1994), a performance research company exploring new approaches to the creation of multi-media performances using a diverse range of performance styles and electronic media. The group has toured internationally with live multimedia theatre productions, and has also created a series of CD-ROMs, installations and interactive productions for the Internet. The Chameleons Group’s latest double DVD of their live multimedia theatre work is available gratis on request from: rachel.russell@brunel.ac.uk

Publications

Journal Papers

(2010) Dixon, S., The Philosophy and Psychology of the Scenographic House in Multimedia Theatre, International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media 6 (1) : 7- 24

(Accepted) DIXON, SR., Space, Metamorphosis and Extratemporality in the Theatre of Robert Lepage, Contemporary Theatre Review 17 (4) : 499- 515

Book Chapters

(Accepted) Dixon, S., Practice-as-Research Methodologies in Digital Performance. In: Kershaw, B. and Nicholson, H. eds. Research Methods in Theatre and Performance. Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press (Forthcoming December 2010)

(2009) Dixon, S., Multi-Identities: Performance, Virtual Environments and the Hybrid Self. In: Stular, M. ed. Post Me_New ID: The Post Human Condition of Modern Europeans. Maribor, Slovenia : KIBLA Press 30- 41

Books

(2007) Dixon, SR., Digital Performance: A History of New Media in Theatre, Dance, Performance Art, and Installation. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press