Mental Skills for the World's Best Performers

My name is Dr Peter Lovatt and I am an academic Dance Psychologist. I have been teaching the Psychology of Performing Arts for over ten years - most recently teaching mental skills for dancers and teachers at the Royal Ballet Upper School in London. While some extraordinarily talented dancers have had their careers cut short because of performance anxiety, other dancers, those who were able to develop the mental skills to manage performance anxiety, have been able to shine, and show the world their full range of extraordinary talents.

Think, Feel, Behave, Perform

Performance Anxiety can affect the way people think, feel, behave and perform. In this course, you will learn about the symptoms of PA. You’ll learn to recognise how PA can change the way you think, how it changes your body, how it changes how you feel and interact with other people and, ultimately, how it changes your performance.

You and Your Symptoms

The symptoms of Performance Anxiety are under your control. You have the power to recognise the symptoms and manage them. In this course you will learn there are many different methods for managing the symptoms of performance anxiety and that learning to apply the appropriate strategy is the key to making performance anxiety work for you and your training, assessment and performance.

The Science of Performance Anxiety

The science of performance anxiety can provide us with an evidence-base which can help us to understand and manage the symptoms of performance anxiety. Performance Anxiety for Dancers and Performers recognises the importance of understanding the evidence-base and that is why we work closely with the scientific literature as part of your learning.

Practice, Practice, Practice

Hands-on practice is the established path to success for dancers and performers. Hands-on practice is also essential for understanding and managing the symptoms of performance anxiety. Performance Anxiety for Dancers and Performers uses Pause & Reflect Activities and Active Learning Exercises to give you the opportunity to think about how the content of the course is relevant to your own performance-related practice and also to give you some hands-on experience.

Give Your Best Performance

Give your best performances in class, rehearsal, auditions, exams and on stage by learning how to recognise, understand and manage your Performance Anxiety.

Varied Learning Activities

Peter delivers the content online through a series of short videos and accompanying slides. Pause & Reflect Activities, which give learners the opportunity to think about how the content applies to their own experience, are interleaved between the videos. In addition, Active Learning Exercises are included to help students dive deeper into some of the course content areas. The course includes suggested readings and the Learning Outcomes are assessed by a Multiple-Choice Quiz (MCQ).

Dance Breaks

And there are Dance Breaks too. Simple, short dances are woven through the learning materials to help students stay physically active during the learning experience. After all, our moto is “when you move, you improve”.

For You

Performance Anxiety for Dancers and Performers is designed for anyone who wants to optimise their training, rehearsal and performance by learning to understand and manage the symptoms of Performance Anxiety. This course is perfect for people who work with dancers and performers.

Accredited CPD

Performance Anxiety for Dancers and Performers has been through a rigorous, independent accreditation process, carried out by CPD Standards, and successful completion of the course carries 5 hours CPD (CE/CPE) credits, which are recognised worldwide.

£49 (plus tax)

Performance Anxiety for Dancers and Performers - 5 hours CPD

What to Expect

  • What you'll learn

    In this introductory course you'll learn about the psychology of performance anxiety. You'll learn about the impact that performance anxiety has on the way we think, the way we feel, the way our body changes and on the way we behave. We'll look at the science and at ways of managing the symptoms.

  • Expert Instructor

    Dr Peter Lovatt is an expert educator, dancer and Dance Psychologist. With over 25 years of university-level teaching and research experience, which extends from Cambridge University to the Royal Ballet School in London, he'll lead you through the course, from novice to expert.

  • Easy to follow lessons

    The Movement in Practice Academy has created bite-size videos, pause and reflect activities, active learning exercises, recommended readings and quizzes, so that your learning is perfectly choreographed for CPD (CE/CPE) success, every step of the way.

Who is the course for?

Performance Anxiety for Dancers and Performers is designed for anyone who performs, and who feels that their performance in class, in the rehearsal studio, at auditions, assessments and in performance environments could be improved by getting a handle on the symptoms of performance anxiety. This course is also appropriate for teachers and other industry professionals who work with people in the performing arts.

£49 (plus tax)

Performance Anxiety for Dancers and Performers - 5 hours CPD

Course Aims

This introductory course in the Psychology of Performance Anxiety for Dancers and Performers provides 5 hours of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) through video-based lectures, Pause and Reflect Activities, Active Learning Exercises, Recommended Readings and a Quiz. The aims of the course are:

  • To provide an introduction to Performance Anxiety (what is performance anxiety and who gets it)

  • To provide a working definition of Performance Anxiety

  • To provide an introduction to the three major symptom groups of performance anxiety

  • To identify how each of these symptoms effect dancers both positively and negatively

  • To look at techniques for preventing/dealing with the symptoms of performance anxiety

Performance Anxiety for Dancers and Performers

Course Curriculum

  • 1

    Welcome to Performance Anxiety

    • Welcome to Performance Anxiety for Dancers
    • How to use this course
    • Module Guide for Performance Anxiety
    • Meet your Instructor
    • Lecture Aims
    • Dance Break - First Eight
  • 2

    Performance Anxiety: Definitions and Context

    • Lecture Overview
    • Performance Anxiety Definition and Context
    • Dance Break - Second Eight
  • 3

    Symptoms of Performance Anxiety

    • Symptoms of Performance Anxiety Part 1
    • Symptoms of Performance Anxiety Part 2
    • Dance Break - Third Eight
  • 4

    Research Evidence

    • Research Evidence - Ballet Dancers
    • Research Evidence - Pianists
    • Research Evidence - Ballroom Dancers
    • Dance Break - Fourth Eight
    • Recommended Reading
  • 5

    Managing the Symptoms of Performance Anxiety

    • Pause and Reflect on Performance Anxiety Symptoms
    • Performance Anxiety - Interventions Part 1
    • Active Learning Exercise #1 - Progressive Muscle Relaxation
    • Performance Anxiety - Interventions Part 2
    • Active Learning Exercise #2 - Visualisation
    • Performance Anxiety - Interventions Part 3
    • Dance Break - from the top & 5 6 7 8
  • 6

    Summary and Quiz

    • Lecture Summary
    • Performance Anxiety Quiz
  • 7

    Student Evaluation

    • Student Evaluation

Recognition of Learning

Upon successful completion of the course you will receive a Certificate of Completion and official recognition of five hours of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) activity.

Accredited CPD training means the learning activity has reached the required Continuing Professional Development standards and benchmarks.

£49 (plus tax)

Performance Anxiety for Dancers and Performers - 5 hours CPD

Principal Lecturer

Peter Lovatt BSc, MSc, PhD

Peter Lovatt

Principal

Peter Lovatt

Dr Peter Lovatt is an award-winning lecturer with over 25 years of university teaching experience. Peter recently left his post at the University of Hertfordshire, where he was Principal Lecturer and Reader in Psychology, to set up Movement in Practice. Peter started out as a teaching assistant at Stirling University in 1993, where he ran seminars on Cognitive Psychology and had his first experience of marking coursework. This was followed by a Psychology Teaching Fellowship at Essex University where he taught Psychology undergraduates, while he completed his PhD. At the same time Peter was also involved with teaching at the Centre for Continuing Education, which provided a range of open access courses for people to complete in the evenings and at weekends. Peter got his first full-time lectureship in 1996 in the Department of Psychology at the University of Greenwich, where he taught Cognitive Psychology and Research Methods. In 1998 he moved to the University of Cambridge, where he taught on the MA in Applied Linguistics and supervised PhD students in the Research Centre for English and Applied Linguistics (Faculty of English). From 2001-2003 Peter was a visiting Lecturer at Birkbeck College, University of London, where he taught the Psychology of Language to undergraduates, and from 2001 to 2004 he held the full-time post of Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Kingston University. In 2004 Peter moved to the University of Hertfordshire to take up the post of Reader in Psychology where, in 2008, he set up the Dance Psychology Lab and established a course in the Psychology of Performing Arts, which included lectures on Dance Psychology. In 2009 Peter’s teaching was Highly Commended in the Vice Chancellor’s Awards. From 2008 to 2019, Peter taught the Psychology of Performing Arts and Dance Psychology at every level of undergraduate and postgraduate teaching (from first year undergraduates to PhD candidates) in the Department of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire. In 2017 Peter started to teach Dance Psychology at the Royal Ballet School in London, to both the vocational dance students as part of the Healthy Dancer course, and also on the Diploma in Dance Teaching.

Perfect Preparatory Reading

Dr Peter Lovatt has written two books on the relationship between dance and psychology.

The Dance Cure

The surprising secret to being smarter, stronger, happier.

Dame Darcey Bussell wrote of The Dance Cure "Peter has brilliantly put into words what I have felt my whole dancing life; that the power of dance can liberate and change all our lives"
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Dance Psychology

the science of dance and dancers

Dance Psychology is the study of dance and dancers from a scientific, psychological perspective. Written by Dr Peter Lovatt (AKA Dr Dance), this Dance Psychology textbook provides a general introduction to the Psychology of Dance and then it delves in to eleven of the most central questions concerning Dance Psychology. Are humans born to dance? Does the way you move your body change the way you think? Will dancing make people happier? Can dancing put people in to a trance-like state? Will a person's dance confidence change across the lifespan? Does dancing make people healthier? Why do we enjoy watching some dance performances more than others? How do dancers remember so many dance routines? Why don't dancers get dizzy? Will dancing improve a person's self-esteem? How do we communicate emotions with our body? Drawing on academic literature, this book is engaging, technical and, in places, critical; it is essential reading for anyone with an interest in Dance Psychology.
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£49 (plus tax)

Performance Anxiety for Dancers and Performers - 5 hours CPD