He worked as an actor for many years, taking minor roles in films like Privates on Parade and on television shows including The Young Ones and The Krypton Factor.
Whilst at the University of Salford he published several articles which address a range of subjects including performance studies, gender, virtual theatre, pedagogy and cybertheory in leading journals such as The Drama Review (TDR), CTHEORY and Digital Creativity.
As the Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Steve's portfolio included knowledge transfer and enterprise development, corporate relationship management, sponsorship and fundraising, PR and profile raising, special projects and international collaborations.
[2] Steve Dixon's other achievements whilst at the University of Brunel included producing his 800-page book Digital Performance, which has won two international awards.
Publishing more works on subjects including theatre studies, film theory, digital arts, Artificial Intelligence, and pedagogy.
Steve has also been invited many times to present seminars at many different Universities' including Paris Sorbonne, Trinity, Beijing Film Academy, Kansas, Bayreuth, Manchester, Nottingham and Bristol.
[2] Previously he worked as a subject reviewer for the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) and was a member of the Benchmarking Reference Group for Dance, Drama and Performance Studies.
Dixon has also formerly been a Chair of the Information Technology Group for the drama subject association SCUDD, a committee member for Performance Studies International, a panel advisor to the North West Arts Board, and an expert advisor on the JISC Arts and Humanities Research ICT Awareness and Training project.
[2] In 1999 Steve Dixon became a co-director for the newly developed Digital Performance Archive funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK).
During the years 1999 – 2000 the Digital Performance Archive recorded all activity found in this field and became an extensive online database of individual works.
The book analyses topics such as ‘space’ and ‘interactivity’ and pays particular attention to the extensive research project of the Digital Performance Archive between the years of 1999–2000.
[8] Steve Dixon published extensively on a broad range of areas including theatre studies, digital arts, film theory, Artificial Intelligence and pedagogy in lead journals such as TDR and CTheory.
The group consisted of Wendy Reed, Fiona Watson, Paul Murphy, Steve Dixon and Sara Bailes.
The performance used Freud's notion of the uncanny, Unheimlich (at once familiar, homelike, but also strange, alien and uncomfortable) as its starting point.
It was a technically ambitious project that involved the devising of a theatrical text and the shooting and editing of over six hours of original video material.
[9] The aim of the project was to attempt to explore the usefulness of Antonin Artaud's theories of performance in specific relation to postmodern theatrical and televisual forms.
However, three weeks into the devising process it was evident amongst the performers that it was very difficult to practically realise Antonin Artaud's theories of the actor.
[12] The narrative portrayed four characters in an imagined place and time somewhere between reality and a dream, who were striving to find a sense of self and their role within the external world.
Three months previously to this process each of the four performers documented their dreams which enabled the company to have an initial springboard for the creation of ideas.
Throughout the piece this opened a gateway for the performers to not only show pre-rehearsed material but also improvise entirely using the online interactive audience as a stimulus.
[14] Four characters, a devil male escort, a genital-less femme fatale, a paranoid cyborg and a vampire bimbo played dangerous games through doors.
The Chameleons Group used this digital performance to explore the relationship between the esoteric and the populist; the disturbing and the comedic and the virtual and the 'real'.