About the Dance with Me Project
Dance with Me is a collaborative movement-and-conversation project that sits at the intersection of dance, psychology, and human connection. At its heart, it is about what happens when two people move together, and then take the time to talk about what that movement, and dance in general, means to them.
The project brings together my work as a dance psychologist with the lived expertise of professionally trained and experienced dancers, alongside the reflective lens of Lindsey Lovatt, an occupational and systemic therapist. I work one-to-one with each collaborator across a series of movement sessions, and together we share, experience, and co-create movement.
Dance with Me: Movement & Dance
The dancing itself is not always about performance or polish. It is about learning how another person moves, our rhythms, tendencies, preferences, and movement personality, and allowing ourselves to be shaped by that encounter. Often this means stepping outside familiar movement habits and noticing what we default to when we’re not paying attention. From this shared exploration, we create a simple movement motif together and then gradually develop it into something new: a piece of movement that would not have existed without this specific collaboration. The dancing becomes a point of connection, and a catalyst for deeper reflection.
Gemma Bonner - Contemporary
In this video, Gemma and I tried some floor work. This was our second session dancing together, and in the first session we had both said how difficult we found working on a hard floor, and therefore avoided it – we each made various complaints about getting up, getting down, feeling ungainly, knocking our knees, elbows and hips. We therefore decided to confront our fear of the floor, and get down.
Our initial Dance with Me conversation moved between joy and vulnerability. We talked about what it means to collaborate rather than lead, about learning to breathe inside movement rather than control it, and about the tension between how dance feels and how we think it looks. Fear of the floor, fear of judgement, and fear of limitation sat alongside moments of deep expression, connection, and joy. What emerged was not a discussion about technique, but about trust, in music, in the body, and in each other.
Anastasia Shea - Ballroom
In this video, Anastasia is teaching me a Foxtrot. It was our first dance session and we spent a lot of time on head placement and body alignment. Anastasia is a competitive ballroom dancer, which involves a practice, discipline and judgement that is far removed form my natural freestyle groove. In our second movement session we worked on an American Smooth version of the Foxtrot.
Our first Dance with Me conversation moved through precision, dependence, and deep mutual awareness. We talked about what it means to dance in a form where nothing exists in isolation, where movement only works if two bodies think, feel, and act as one. Anastasia described a world of extreme detail and cognitive intensity, where technique must become automatic in order to free the mind to listen, interpret, and respond in real time to another human being. Emotion runs high here, not as self-expression alone, but as shared pressure, responsibility, and public exposure, where success and failure are deeply personal and highly visible. What emerged was not simply a discussion about ballroom technique, but about trust, attunement, and surrender: to a partner, to timing, and to the invisible forces that only exist when two people truly dance together.
Laura Cherry - 60's GoGo and 70s Disco
In these two videos Laura and I meet and dance together for the first time at Pineapple Dance Studios. We had a conversation about how it feels to dance in different environments, such as in the studio, in a nightclub, on stage, or in a public space. We decided to directly compare studio vs. square and took our routines outside to dance in Covent Garden, in London’s West End. We had no music outside so we were just feeling the groove with the tunes in our heads.
Our first Dance with Me conversation moved through joy, inclusion, and the quiet power of letting go. We talked about dance as something that begins privately, in bedrooms, in bodies, in music, and then grows outward into shared experience, community, and celebration. Laura spoke about disco and 60s go-go not as nostalgia, but as democratic movement forms: dances that welcome every body, every age, and every level of confidence. We explored how playful imagery and named steps dissolve fear, how mirrors can inhibit freedom, and how the moment when self-consciousness drops away is often the most emotionally profound part of dancing. What emerged was not a discussion about performance or perfection, but about dance as release, a way of reconnecting people to their bodies, their emotions, and each other, until joy becomes something felt rather than performed.
Dance with Me: Conversation & Psychology
What connects all of these encounters is a shared willingness to step into uncertainty — to dance without knowing exactly where it will lead, and to talk honestly about what emerges along the way. Dance with Me is not about mastering steps or reaching conclusions. It is about noticing: how bodies adapt, how minds respond, how emotions surface, and how connection is built through movement. Each collaboration is a moment in time, but together they form a growing archive of what dance can be, not just as an art form, but as a deeply human way of understanding ourselves and each other.
The Aims of the Dance with Me Project
A collaborative movement and conversation project, exploring the psychology of dance.
Project Team
Peter Lovatt: Dance Psychologist
Collaborators: Professionally trained/experienced dancers.
Lindsey Lovatt: Occupational Therapist
The collaboration process involves sharing movement and having conversations around the psychology of dance.
Movement Sharing
I work individually with collaborators across multiple movement sessions.
The aims of the movement sharing sessions are:
- To share and experience another person’s movement characteristics/personality.
- To perhaps step outside of our movement comfort zones (and to notice our habitual ways of moving).
- To create a shared movement motif, and then to develop this to create something new, to create something that otherwise would not have existed.
- To create a connection, and a catalyst for the conversation.
Conversation
The aims of the conversation sessions are:
- To explore our personal relationships with dance through the STEP Framework (conversations with me).
- To explore our personal relationship with dance across our lifespan (conversation with Lindsey).
- To discuss the Dance with Me process in general (conversation with Lindsey).
Outputs
New Movement Motif
Private: Individual summary of STEP focused conversation and dance-related lifespan.
Public: Summary of each collaborators Dance with Me experience.
Public: Written and video documentation of emergent themes and emergent movements, based on project teams experiences.
Public: Possible exhibition/performance.