Doctor Dance Cancer Program
An uplifting online dance programme designed to support emotional, cognitive, social, and physical wellbeing through movement.
Doctor Dance Cancer Program
Eight short dances. Four psychological perspectives. Movement you can make your own.
An uplifting, psychologically informed online dance programme for people living with and beyond cancer.
£45 | Start whenever you’re ready.
Explore eight short Doctor Dance routines with contrasting emotional, thinking, social and physical characters. Learn each dance through simple eight-count Doses, dance along with music, and create your own personalised playlists with Doctor Dance Collections.
What you'll explore
- You’ll discover eight short dances, each with its own distinctive psychological character.
- You’ll explore movement as a possible way of expressing strong, tender or difficult emotions.
- You’ll experience dances that invite concentration, coordination, imagination and playful thinking.
- You’ll explore the social qualities of moving together, reaching out and encouraging yourself and others.
- You’ll experience both lively physical movement and gentler, breath-led movement.
- You’ll learn each dance through short eight-count movement “Doses” that can be practised individually.
This programme includes:
- Eight short Doctor Dance routines
- Four psychologically informed perspectives
- Dance-along videos with music
- Short eight-count Dose videos
- The psychological character behind every dance
- Personalised Doctor Dance Collections
Programme content
Section 1: Welcome and Introduction
Meet Dr Peter Lovatt and discover how the programme works. You’ll be introduced to the Emotional, Thinking, Social and Physical perspectives and learn how to adapt the movements to your body, energy and circumstances.
Section 2: Emotional Response to Cancer
Explore two contrasting ways of giving movement to emotional experience.
Ballet and Breathe is gentle, spacious and breath-led.
The F Cancer Haka is forceful, grounded and emotionally direct.
Each dance offers a different movement space in which emotions can be acknowledged and explored without prescribing how you should feel.
Section 3: Thinking Response to Cancer
Discover two dances that engage the mind in very different ways.
The Leo is absorbing, complex and cognitively demanding.
Mr Pinstripe is playful, imaginative and characterful.
Explore concentration, coordination, memory, imagination and the pleasure of giving your mind something different to do.
Section 4: Social Response to Cancer
Explore movement as a way of participating, reaching out and acknowledging the people around you.
The Tap and Wiggle Line Dance is communal, structured and perspective-shifting.
The Cheer Dance is encouraging, outward-reaching and relational.
You can dance alone, with someone else or as part of an imagined wider community.
Section 5: Physical Response to Cancer
Experience two contrasting forms of physical movement.
The Charleston is lively, buoyant and physically playful.
The Willowy Wander is tender, reflective and physically open.
Both dances can be made larger, smaller, slower, seated or adapted to suit the body and energy you have today.
Section 6: Doctor Dance Collections
Once you have explored all eight dances, use Doctor Dance Collections to create a personalised dance-along playlist.
Choose a slower, medium-paced, faster or mixed collection, or bring together all eight dances. Your selected dances will appear in a ready-to-play playlist and in a changing order each time, giving you a fresh dance experience whenever you return.
Requirements
No dance experience required.
You can participate standing or seated and make every movement as large, small, lively or gentle as you choose.
Please read the programme’s safety guidance before beginning and seek advice from an appropriate healthcare professional if you are unsure whether movement is suitable for you.
Description
The Doctor Dance Cancer Program is a psychologically informed online dance program created for people living with and beyond cancer who want an enjoyable, accessible and adaptable way to reconnect with movement.
The program was created by Dr Peter Lovatt, psychologist, former professional dancer, author and internationally recognised Dance Psychologist, and Lindsey Lovatt, an Occupational and Systemic Therapist.
Cancer can affect many aspects of human experience. It can influence how we feel emotionally, how we think, how connected we feel to other people and how we experience our physical body. The program explores these experiences through four perspectives:
- Emotional Response to Cancer
- Thinking Response to Cancer
- Social Response to Cancer
- Physical Response to Cancer
Within each perspective, you’ll encounter two dances with contrasting psychological characters. Some are powerful and expressive. Some are tender and reflective. Some require concentration and coordination. Others are communal, playful, lively or breath-led.
Every dance begins with an introduction to its psychological character and why it was chosen for the program. You’ll then see the complete dance demonstrated, dance along with music and explore the movements through four or five short eight-count Doses.
The dances are intentionally short. A complete routine lasts approximately 20–25 seconds, while dancing it three times with music generally takes little more than a minute. On some days, you might explore a single Dose. On others, you might dance the complete routine several times. Both count.
After exploring all eight dances, you can use Doctor Dance Collections to create personalised dance-along playlists based on your preferred pace, number of dances and available time.
The Doctor Dance Cancer Program is informed by contemporary research exploring dance, movement, wellbeing, emotional expression, social connection, cognition, physical activity and quality of life among people living with and beyond cancer. It does not claim that these particular dances have been clinically tested or promise that everyone will respond to them in the same way.
You are encouraged to move at your own pace and adapt every dance to suit your body, energy and experience. You can dance standing or seated, gently or energetically, alone or with other people.
Part of the Doctor Dance Cancer Hub
The Doctor Dance cancer program forms part of the wider Doctor Dance Cancer Hub.
The Doctor Dance Cancer Hub brings together accessible research evidence, psychologically informed ideas and practical movement experiences for people living with and beyond cancer. It explores what research suggests, and what remains uncertain, about dance, fatigue, mood, physical function, body image and quality of life.
The Doctor Dance Cancer Hub helps you explore the evidence. The Doctor Dance Cancer Program helps you experience the movement. Doctor Dance Collections help you make that movement your own.
How to Use the program
The Doctor Dance Cancer Program can be used by anybody on their cancer journey.
The dances are very short and are designed for you to put into your daily or weekly routine.
Dances can be done standing or seated.
The Doctor Dance Cancer Program offers you the psychological and physical benefits of moving your body using dance whilst on your cancer journey.
Studies suggest that using dance in your cancer journey might help you cope with demanding psychological issues and keep your body resilient.
Who is the course for?
The Doctor Dance Cancer Program has been created for people living with and beyond cancer who:
- Want an enjoyable and adaptable way to move
- Feel disconnected from their body following diagnosis or treatment
- Miss music, movement or dancing
- Would like to explore different forms of emotional expression
- Sometimes feel mentally preoccupied or overwhelmed
- Prefer movement that feels expressive and human rather than clinical or gym-based
- Want short dances that can be completed in seconds or minutes
- Would like the freedom to dance standing, seated, gently, energetically, alone or with others
You do not need to think of yourself as a dancer. You do not need to remember every movement, perform it perfectly or complete a particular amount.
This is an invitation to explore.
Welcome to the Doctor Dance Cancer Program
Course Content
An Introduction to the Doctor Dance Cancer Program
About Instructor
Course Includes
- 11 Lessons
