Lins Derry
Lins Derry
PhD Student
As an emerging scholar and choreographic designer, Lins Derry researches the body-data relationship in the context of American media and culture from the interdisciplinary perspective of choreography, data representation, and human-computer interaction. Creatively, this has led her to experiment with designing choreographic interfaces aimed at increasing the kinetic and spatial interactivity between moving bodies and information systems, as well as with data embodiment, a method for translating datasets into performance scores (see Data Sensorium) or participatory experiences (see The Data Twist). Ultimately, her work asks: Given our physical indivisibility from our data-driven world, how can performance practice and theory help us to navigate the complexities of abstract information and the issues it produces, such as those pertaining to data representation, surveillance, and democratic engagement?
Derry’s research on the body-data relationship has been generously incubated at metaLAB (at) Harvard, where she was a Principal for five years; the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD), where she was an Artist in Residence for two years; and The George Washington University, where she’s currently pursuing a PhD in American Studies. In 2025, she was awarded an Arts for All Faculty Fellowship at UMD to lead a participatory art project centered on kinesthetically playing with survey data to promote public discourse. In addition to disseminating her work via lectures, workshops, and performances, she has published it in peer-reviewed journals, such as the International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media, and in conference proceedings like that of the International Conference on Movement and Computing.
In 2020, Derry graduated with distinction from the Master in Design Studies program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Prior to this, she performed professionally with dance companies based in New York, San Francisco, and Montréal, including TAKE Dance, Hope Mohr Dance, and José Navas/Compagnie Flak. With these companies, she had the opportunity to tour across North America, Europe, and Asia. Highlights included dancing at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and the Oslo Opera House. As a solo artist, she had the privilege of performing at Korea’s Modern Dance Festival, the Beijing Dance Festival, DOCK11 Berlin, and other venues via her platform, Linsdans, which culminated in an Isadora Duncan Dance Award (Izzie). Support for Linsdans came from American Dance Abroad, the Zellerbach Family Foundation, and numerous residencies like the Djerassi Resident Artists Program. Connecting back to dance, Derry now serves as an Artistic Consultant and Advisory Board Member at Springboard Danse.
Where did you go for undergrad and what did you study?
I attended the State University of New York at Purchase College (SUNY Purchase), Conservatory of Dance, where I earned a BFA in Dance Performance with a Certificate in Arts Management.
If you could only listen to one album for the rest of your life what would it be and why?
OK Computer by Radiohead because it not only energetically drops me into my past, younger body as a professional dancer, but when watching videos of Thom Yorke performing songs from it two decades later, I feel profoundly inspired to bridge those past feelings into new, artistic expressions as a mature artist. So, listening to OK Computer is at once nostalgic and generative.
Why American Studies and why GW?
I chose American Studies so that I could research the interplay between bodies and data in American media and culture, where matters of privacy, representation, and democracy are especially prevalent. The Department of American Studies’ core research strength of Public Culture and Performance, combined with GW's proximity to many data-centric cultural institutions, made it the ideal context for pursuing scholarship on the body–data relationship.