Dr Lucy Tyler

dr lucy tyler is a performance maker, researcher, somatic dramaturg and movement facilitator who draws on the attunement to self, other and world as a source of care and creative composition. Somatic movement is a means to slow down, feel and attend to physical and perceptual choice-making. It is also a rich source of creative, body-based inspiration for physical and devised theatre, live art and screendance. 

At The University of Reading, lucy is a core faculty member in the Film, Theatre & Television dept. She works full time for the University as associate professor of performance. At Minghella Studios, lucy teaches students how to develop as skilled makers. She helps students work on their knowledge of theatre and the creative industries, their skills and confidence. With lucy’s support, students progress in their modules to plan and make their own text-based, performance-focused, and/or screen-based projects. As a dramaturg, lucy has specialised in supporting performance makers in the theatre industry since 2010, at first focusing on new writing development across theatre, film and tv. Over a decade, her dramaturgical practice expanded until she was co-creating with diverse artists, performance companies and theatres across the UK, US, Europe and Brazil. Her research has, as a result, explored what it is to be with makers of all kinds, and the different ways they develop themselves and their work. Her monograph English Play Development Under Neoliberalism 2000-2022 (Cambridge) is forthcoming in 2025. In addition, lucy as written numerous chapters and articles on English play development practices. lucy's  expertise in performance development enable her to support and feedback to students working on all forms of practice. As school representative on the Awarding Gap Steering Group, lucy holds space for students of all backgrounds, abilities and orientations, readying them for work in the creative industries after University. 

lucy is currently exploring ways of working with the body somatically on stage and screen. Her own performance practice is initiated in somatic and ecosomatic methods, and explores themes of ecology and m/othering through the medium of screendance and photography. She practises somatics informed by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, and ecosomatics inspired by Body Cartography and Body Weather. If you are an artist keen to build into your practice an appreciation of the depth and breadth of the body’s physical systems, and the endless creative possibilities that reside there, lucy's somatic dramaturgy could support you. With a special focus on building locations of care - for the self and others - into the creative process, lucy’s somatic dramaturgy also enhances relationality and attunement inside production. To help emerging and mid-career performance makers, lucy organises an arts council funded project, Work in Progress, in conjunction with South Street Arts Centre. Work in Progress has supported artists including Action Hero, Ray Young, Andy Smith, Jamal Harewood, Fast Familiar, Sheila Gehlani and Sue Palmer, Greg Wohead, Little Bulb, Rosanna Jahangard - to name a few. 

As a movement facilitator, lucy also works outside the University with people of all kinds who would like to feel more, move with ease, and develop increased bodily awareness in all contexts and life stages. she creates yoga and somatic movement series, workshops and private sessions with ‘Elements Movement Lab’ at Ayres House Studios, Oxfordshire. Elements is a resource for anyone who would like to renew their relationship with their body, interrogating ways to move intuitively, with compassion and awareness. lucy balances her applied practice with Elements Movement Lab around her full-time contribution to the dept, leading classes and consultations across evenings & weekends. 

Please feel free to get in touch with lucy anytime via her University email (for University matters), or lsrtyler@gmail.com for other enquiries. lucy does not capitalise her name nor title in a gesture that aims to democratise people and spaces of co-creation.