University of Hertfordshire

Faculty Member, Psychology

Reader in Psychology of Dance

About

Dr Peter Lovatt is a Reader in Psychology and Principal lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire. Before starting on an academic career Peter was a professional dancer. Peter trained in dance and musical theatre at the Guildford School of Acting and after graduating worked in most of the UK’s number 1 theatres and on the international dance circuit. Peter left full time theatre to study Psychology and English at the Roehampton Institute, London, and graduated from the University of Surrey in 1993. Following this he took an MSc in Neural Computation from the Centre for Cognitive and Computational Neurosciences at the University of Stirling in 1994 (funded by a SERC scholarship), and thereafter went on to do doctoral research in the department of Psychology at the University of Essex (funded by a University Teaching Fellowship). In 1998 Peter joined the Research Centre for English and Applied Linguistics, at the University of Cambridge, as a Senior Research Psychologist. After a spell in industry, as a Principal Research Scientist for a speech-based R&D company, he joined Kingston University, where he was the co-ordinator of the Psychology Research Unit and Deputy Head of the School of Social Sciences. Peter joined the School of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire in September 2004.

Peter has retained an active passion for dance throughout his life. In addition to carrying out research into the Psychology of Dance he teaches dance, choreographs and continues to attend class. Peter’s aim is to engage with as many different forms of dance as possible. He currently enjoys jazz, tap, ballet, ballroom, Latin, disco, salsa and jive. While he recognizes that certain dance styles attract certain types and ages of people, he believes that no one should be discouraged from enjoying any form of dance. This active participation and belief in dance, together with Peter’s professional training and experience as both a dancer and a Psychologist, puts him in a unique position to understand the relationship between dance and human psychology.

Peter’s research into the psychology of dance has a broad and international appeal. One of his recent studies examined the dancing styles of over 13,600 people, and another examined the link between hormones and dancing ability. Peter has been interviewed about his research extensively and his findings have been reported in serious and mainstream magazines (e.g. Scientific American Mind, Psychologies) in the broadsheet and tabloid press (e.g. The Sunday Telegraph and The Sun) on serious, scientific and local radio programmes (e.g. Radio 4’s Today Programme, The Naked Scientist, BBC Three Counties radio) and on television (e.g. The Graham Norton Show and GMTV). Peter’s research has an international appeal. His findings have been featured in the American press and TV (e.g. Good Morning America), in Europe, Russia, India and Australia. Videos of Peter discussing his research have been very popular on YouTube, a clip of his appearance on the Graham Norton Show has been watched tens of thousands of times. Peter has just finished filming a dance study as part of a documentary taster for BBC Three called “Love Factually” and he has filmed another televised dance study to be broadcast on The One Show on BBC1 in the summer of 2009.

Peter, together with Russell Maliphant (dancer/choreographer and resident artist at Saddlers Wells) and Marina Wallace (art historian, ArtAKT @ CSM), has recently been awarded a research grant by the Wellcome Trust to examine people's psychological and physiological response to dance. The research team will use the grant to create a number of dance pieces and monitor people's psychological and physiological responses to them in different performance spaces.

Peter is actively engaged in the public understanding of science. He has given lectures at the Royal Institution, the Science Museum, the Edinburgh International Science Festival and at the Wellcome Collection.

Dr Peter Lovatt is a Psychologist and a Dancer.

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