ResDance Series 7: Episode 8: Bodies, materiality and touch in multi-person VR: creating immersive performance with Lisa May Thomas

In this episode, Lisa May shares insight into her experiences as a dance artist and researcher and how these continue to inform her interests in embodiment, immersive performance and digital technologies.  Through situating her ideas in practice, Lisa May offers insight into the body as a site of research, the use of combining dance-somatic and improvisation practices and the value of finding stillness in life and movement.

Dr Lisa May Thomas is a dance artist and researcher, investigating the intersections of dance, embodiment, immersive performance and digital futures. Her PhD (2021, University of Bristol) investigated the role of immersive technologies in performance, combining dance-somatic and improvisation practices with multi-person VR technology. She is currently a Senior Research Associate at the ESRC Centre for Sociodigital Futures (CenSoF) at
the University of Bristol. She is a resident at the Pervasive Media Studio in Bristol and Studio Wayne McGregor QuestLab Network Artist. She directed VR experience ‘Soma’ which launched at the Bloomsbury theatre (2021) as a participatory performance and has since been remodelled as a social experience and used as a method for exploring embodiment and the senses, materiality, presence and connectedness across real and virtual worlds with a range of under-represented communities including blind and visually impaired people (working with the CenSoF, University of Bath and Bristol Digital Futures Institute. Lisa teaches and supervises undergraduate and postgraduate students in dance and somatic practices, improvisation, immersive performance, and screendance as part of BA dance/theatre and MA immersive arts courses at the
University of Bristol and as guest lecture at Bath Spa University. As artistic director for her company May Productions, she is continually developing her practice in performance and film-making, as well as mentoring, consultancy, and training.

Contact details:

Freelance email: lisamay.thomas@mac.com

Work email: lisamay.thomas@bristol.ac.uk

Lisa May Thomas on LinkedIn

Published sources of interest:

Please see the following for publications:

https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/persons/lisa-may-thomas/publications/

Projects:

https://www.bristol.ac.uk/bristol-digital-futures-institute/research/seed-corn-funding/making-mixed-reality-experiences-accessible/

https://www.bristol.ac.uk/bristol-digital-futures-institute/research/seed-corn-funding/inclusive-digital-innovation-community/

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.