Early Life
He studied performing arts at the Victoria University of Manchester, graduating in the same class as Rik Mayall. 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. For three years in the early 1980s he began working as a stand-up comic at The Comedy Store in London. He also worked in theatre, most notably with directors such as Nicholas Hytner, Steven Berkoff and Richard Eyre as well as working with experimental theatre companies Incubus and Lumiere & Son. He has directed productions himself in Mexico, Latvia and the UK, and produced an opera for the theatre company Opera North. Dixon has also directed five independent films which include large-scale movies produced through community texts. He also won an Industrial Society directing award for corporate video. He has also been the Director of Training for Glasgow Film and Video Workshop. Dixon has directed television programmes for Anglia and Granada Television, where he also produced an arts series. In 1984 Dixon appeared on Coronation Street as a taxi driver escorting the long serving character Elsie Tanner out of Weatherfield after 24 years on the show and 45 years on the street.
He turned to lecturing during the 1990s, and has since become a world renowned academic in the field of performing arts. Originally working at the University of Salford, he has since moved to Brunel University in London, where he was head of the School of Arts, and later from 2008 one of the university's Pro-Vice Chancellors. One of his main publications is the book on Digital Performance published by MIT press.
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