Dance Psychology: What if...?
I’ve always been fascinated by the “What if…?” question as it relates to the dance world.
What if there was a groove cafe on every high street? What if dance, in its broadest sense, was a recognised life-long career choice, like that of being a teacher or a police officer? What if we were to create and deliver dance-based interventions that could address some of societies biggest problems? And, What if the whole dance ecosystem had the same business model and funding as, say, the pharmaceutical industry?
We’ll discuss these “What if…?” questions in this four-week live online seminar series, led by me, dance psychologist and author Dr Peter Lovatt.
£119 | Limited places available
- Starts 30th September. Wednesdays, 2-3pm (UK time). Join the four-week conversation
What we'll explore
Across four live, 60-minute seminars, we will travel from a single high-street idea to an entirely reimagined dance, health and social-care ecosystem.
We will begin by opening the doors of a fictional Groove Café. From there, we will create a national dance workforce, apply its potential to the problem of loneliness, and finally imagine what might happen if dance-based health interventions received investment on the scale of the pharmaceutical industry.
This is not a conventional course with a fixed body of knowledge and a set of correct answers. It is a live think-tank for people who want to question assumptions, test possibilities and imagine futures that do not yet exist.
- How short, accessible “doses” of dance might become part of ordinary high-street life.
- What a properly trained, paid and supported national dance workforce could look like.
- How we might design a dance-based response to loneliness that people experiencing isolation would genuinely want to join.
- What research, clinical practice and prescribing might become if dance-based health interventions attracted investment on the scale of the pharmaceutical industry.
- How evidence from dance psychology can inform imaginative thinking without limiting us to what already exists.
- Questions of access, inclusion, training, funding, evaluation, ethics and ownership.
- What could become possible if dance were treated as a serious contributor to individual and collective life.
- How your own experiences and ideas might contribute to a larger vision for dance in society.
The seminar series includes:
- Four 60-minute live Zoom seminars
- A new "What if...?" provocation each week
- An evidence-informed introduction from Dr Peter Lovatt
- Structured and facilitated group discussion
- Opportunities to contribute your own ideas, experience and questions
- Access to the seminar recordings
The four provocations
Session 1: The Groove Café
What if every high street had a Groove Café?
Imagine walking into a café where, alongside something to eat or drink, you could choose a short dose of movement designed around how you wanted to feel.
Perhaps the menu would offer an eight-count Groove Shot, a longer Regular Groove, a Groove to Share with someone else, or a changing Today’s Special. You might choose movement for your mood, your thinking, your body or your sense of connection.
What would such a place look and feel like? Who would enter, and who might walk past? What kinds of movement would be offered, who would deliver them, and what psychological outcomes could we reasonably expect from three minutes of dance?
We will use the Groove Café to explore how dance might become an ordinary, visible and inviting part of daily life, not only for people who already think of themselves as dancers, but for everybody.
Session 2: The National Dance Service
What if dance practitioners were valued like teachers, nurses and police officers?
Now imagine that access to dance was not dependent on occasional projects, insecure freelance work or a postcode lottery.
What if there was a National Dance Service employing appropriately trained dance practitioners on recognised pay scales, with professional standards, secure employment and genuine opportunities for career progression?
Where would these practitioners work? What services would they provide in schools, communities, hospitals, workplaces and care settings? What training and regulation would be required? How would we distinguish between different role, and who would decide whether the service was working?
Having imagined a place where people could access dance, we will now imagine the workforce and infrastructure that could make widespread access possible.
Session 3: The Loneliness Antidote
What if we designed a dance-based intervention specifically to combat loneliness?
A dance class may bring people together, but that does not automatically make it an effective intervention for loneliness.
If we were given the resources to design a dance-based response from the ground up, what would it look like? Who would it be for? Where would it happen? How would people join, and how would we reach those who feel unable, unwilling or too anxious to walk into a conventional dance setting?
We will explore the difference between social contact and meaningful connection. We will consider the movement itself, the role of the facilitator, the structure of the group, the language used to invite people, and what might encourage relationships to continue beyond the intervention.
This is where our imagined infrastructure meets a specific human problem.
Session 4: The Ecosystem
What if dance-based health interventions attracted investment on the scale of the pharmaceutical industry?
Imagine an ecosystem in which dance-based interventions were researched, developed and funded with the resources currently associated with major drug development.
There might be dance-science laboratories, large-scale clinical trials and carefully targeted movement interventions. Healthcare professionals might prescribe a particular movement programme, which would then be “dispensed” by trained practitioners in clinics, community facilities, specialist studios or people’s homes.
What evidence would be required? How would interventions be standardised without stripping away the humanity, creativity and responsiveness of dance? Who would own them? Who would profit and who might be excluded?
In our final session, we will connect the high street, the workforce and the human need to an imagined research, clinical and commercial ecosystem. We will ask not only what might become possible, but what could be lost when dance acquires institutional and economic power.
How each seminar works
Each session begins with a provocation: an imagined situation designed to disrupt familiar assumptions about dance and its place in society.
I will introduce the idea, connect it to relevant thinking and research from dance psychology, and identify some of the practical and ethical tensions it creates.
We will then open the question to the group. Together, we will examine the idea from multiple perspectives, test its strengths and weaknesses, identify unintended consequences and consider what would need to be true for it to work.
There are no correct, or incorrect, answers. We are creating a space in which interesting questions can be taken seriously.
Requirements
No previous study of dance psychology is required.
You do not need dance training, and you will not be expected to perform or demonstrate movement.
You simply need curiosity, a willingness to question familiar assumptions, and an interest in listening to and exploring ideas with other people.
You are welcome to contribute actively to the discussions or to participate primarily by listening and reflecting.
Description
Dance Psychology: What if…? is a four-week live seminar series exploring what dance might become if we allowed ourselves to think beyond existing institutions, funding models and professional boundaries.
The series begins with something small and tangible: an eight-count dose of dance on an ordinary high street. It then expands in scale.
If people could access dance in everyday life, who would provide it? If we created the professional infrastructure, how might it address a major human problem such as loneliness? And if dance-based healthcare received investment on an industrial scale, what system of research, prescribing, delivery and regulation might emerge?
Each question leads to the next:
The place. The workforce. The human need. The ecosystem.
These are not predictions or ready-made business proposals. They are structured thought experiments. By imagining an alternative reality, we can examine what we currently value, what prevents change and what possibilities might be hiding inside apparently impossible ideas.
The seminars will be led by me, Dr Peter Lovatt, dance psychologist, former professional dancer, author of Dance Psychology and The Dance Cure, and founder of the Dance Psychology Lab and the Doctor Dance Academy.
I’ll bring ideas and evidence from dance psychology, and you will bring your own experiences, disciplines, questions, doubts and imaginations.
About Instructor
Course Includes
- 4 Lessons
