Performance Anxiety for Dancers

Performance anxiety can do one of two things: it can either get in the way of you giving your best performance, or it can help you to give the performance of your life. The effect of Performance Anxiety depends on you, and how you understand, work with and manage the symptoms.

Performance Anxiety can affect the way people think, feel, behave and perform. In this course, you will learn about the symptoms of Performance Anxiety. 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.

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 performance.

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.

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

Course Content

Welcome to Performance Anxiety

Welcome to Performance Anxiety for Dancers

Module Guide for Performance Anxiety

Meet your Instructor

Lecture Aims

Dance Break – First Eight

Performance Anxiety: Definitions and Context

Lecture Overview

Performance Anxiety Definition and Context

Dance Break – Second Eight

Symptoms of Performance Anxiety

Symptoms of Performance Anxiety Part 1

Symptoms of Performance Anxiety Part 2

Dance Break – Third Eight

Research Evidence

Research Evidence – Ballet Dancers

Research Evidence – Pianists

Research Evidence – Ballroom Dancers

Dance Break – Fourth Eight

About Instructor

Dr Peter Lovatt

Peter is an award-winning university lecturer with over 25 years of teaching experience. He 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, as 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. Peter and Lindsey Lovatt co-founded Movement in Practice, and the Movement in Practice Academy, in 2020.

6 Courses

Course Content

About Instructor

Dr Peter Lovatt

Course Includes