TEDxOslo - Peter Lovatt - Dance, thinking, hormones (2011)
1. Dance
2. Thinking
3. Hormones
Lovatt runs a Dance Psychology Lab at the University of Hertfordshire where research is conducted on the effect Dance has on people and how we understand and how is it we recognise things that we communicate through dance and how the brain does that.
Lovatt says that if he had not been a Dancer, he would not have been a psychologist!
If he had not been a dancer, he would not have known what his life would have amounted to at all!
I think this is incredible, because we have a male who has stated that through the study of dance, he has paved his career in academia through a vocational subject.
In the talk, Lovatt said that when he was growing up, he had profound reading difficulties.... he found it impossible to make sense of reading, which led to not being able to learn effectively. When he tried to read, he felt awkward and clumsy.... but he was lucky because he could dance. When danced, he didn't feel awkward or clumsy - he felt natural.
He left school and worked as a professional dancer.
What if he applied his ability to learn dance in order to learn words? (wow!!!)
Use techniques in dance - rhythms, patterns, and breaking things down in a physical way.
In applying these rules and techniques to words, he finally learnt to read at 22.
"Once you can read, you're no longer stupid!"
Once he learnt to read, he wanted to be a University Academic at Cambridge - he studied through his Masters and Doctorates to achieve this.
What inspired him to do all this was dancing.
"How is it the case that dancing can unlock these thought processes?"
"How is it the case that dancing can help someone learn how to read and learn to think?"
Lovatt started to research into dyslexia, reading difficulties and creativity - he shared a couple of experiments using the relationship between dance and thinking.
He asked the audience to think of two types of thinking:
1) The type of thinking where you have to solve a problem and the problem has only one right answer
eg: 5 x 3 (he pauses before an audience member says 15)
eg: 15 x 3 (45)
eg: 43 x 9 (no one answered immediateley)
Lovatt acknowledges that the audience needed to maybe think through some steps in their head order to work out his most recent equation. He said "what you're doing here is you're trying to solve a problem where there's one answer to that problem, which is called conversion thinking.
2) Household item - think of as many alternative uses for that object that was not for what it was originally designed. Lovatt asks the audience to generate a use in their mind, then throw it out, generate another, then throw it out - how many can you generate?:
eg: a household brick (juggle, breaking a window, bookshelf)
Lovatt goes on to say that in his lab, using these two types of thinking, is to get people dancing in all kinds of different way to see it how it effects their way to problem solve.
He then gets the audience to participate in a sequence of movement:
1) slap thighs (for two counts)
2) clap (for two counts)
3) hover (2) /mashed potato (2)/"it could be you" (1) /the hitchhiker/the John Trovolta (2)
Getting his audience to complete the sequence to "Born To Handjive", the room complete 2 rounds of each sequence before asking them to do 1 round of each sequence.
For the third time he asked to the audience to do it double time/twice as fast.
For the fourth time he asked the audience to improvise the 3rd movement of the sequence to the double time speed.
The science of this is when Lovatt completes an experiment such as this, there are two things that come to light:
1) When people do structured dance, it makes them faster at solving conversiant problems - eg: what is 5x9? What is 43x9?
It speeds up the cognitive processes!
2) When people are improvising, using 20 minutes of making stuff up physical with the body, with music or with writing, it helps to find more solutions to divergent thinking problems
2. Thinking
3. Hormones
Lovatt runs a Dance Psychology Lab at the University of Hertfordshire where research is conducted on the effect Dance has on people and how we understand and how is it we recognise things that we communicate through dance and how the brain does that.
Lovatt says that if he had not been a Dancer, he would not have been a psychologist!
If he had not been a dancer, he would not have known what his life would have amounted to at all!
I think this is incredible, because we have a male who has stated that through the study of dance, he has paved his career in academia through a vocational subject.
In the talk, Lovatt said that when he was growing up, he had profound reading difficulties.... he found it impossible to make sense of reading, which led to not being able to learn effectively. When he tried to read, he felt awkward and clumsy.... but he was lucky because he could dance. When danced, he didn't feel awkward or clumsy - he felt natural.
He left school and worked as a professional dancer.
What if he applied his ability to learn dance in order to learn words? (wow!!!)
Use techniques in dance - rhythms, patterns, and breaking things down in a physical way.
In applying these rules and techniques to words, he finally learnt to read at 22.
"Once you can read, you're no longer stupid!"
Once he learnt to read, he wanted to be a University Academic at Cambridge - he studied through his Masters and Doctorates to achieve this.
What inspired him to do all this was dancing.
"How is it the case that dancing can unlock these thought processes?"
"How is it the case that dancing can help someone learn how to read and learn to think?"
Lovatt started to research into dyslexia, reading difficulties and creativity - he shared a couple of experiments using the relationship between dance and thinking.
He asked the audience to think of two types of thinking:
1) The type of thinking where you have to solve a problem and the problem has only one right answer
eg: 5 x 3 (he pauses before an audience member says 15)
eg: 15 x 3 (45)
eg: 43 x 9 (no one answered immediateley)
Lovatt acknowledges that the audience needed to maybe think through some steps in their head order to work out his most recent equation. He said "what you're doing here is you're trying to solve a problem where there's one answer to that problem, which is called conversion thinking.
conversion thinking = conversion on one problem
conversion = the process of changing
2) Household item - think of as many alternative uses for that object that was not for what it was originally designed. Lovatt asks the audience to generate a use in their mind, then throw it out, generate another, then throw it out - how many can you generate?:
eg: a household brick (juggle, breaking a window, bookshelf)
Lovatt goes on to say that in his lab, using these two types of thinking, is to get people dancing in all kinds of different way to see it how it effects their way to problem solve.
He then gets the audience to participate in a sequence of movement:
1) slap thighs (for two counts)
2) clap (for two counts)
3) hover (2) /mashed potato (2)/"it could be you" (1) /the hitchhiker/the John Trovolta (2)
Getting his audience to complete the sequence to "Born To Handjive", the room complete 2 rounds of each sequence before asking them to do 1 round of each sequence.
For the third time he asked to the audience to do it double time/twice as fast.
For the fourth time he asked the audience to improvise the 3rd movement of the sequence to the double time speed.
The science of this is when Lovatt completes an experiment such as this, there are two things that come to light:
1) When people do structured dance, it makes them faster at solving conversiant problems - eg: what is 5x9? What is 43x9?
It speeds up the cognitive processes!
2) When people are improvising, using 20 minutes of making stuff up physical with the body, with music or with writing, it helps to find more solutions to divergent thinking problems
divergent thinking = a method to use creative ideas to explore many possible solutions
divergent = develop in different directions
It makes you more creative.
Lovatt states that at that time, he was in the midst of researching of applying this in schools to see how school children can learn material through applying movement to help them solve problems faster and find creative solutions to problems.
THIS IS SO USEFUL TO MY INQUIRY IN RESEARCHING HOW DANCE AS A SECONDARY SCHOOL SUBJECT IS IMPORTANT IN POSITIVE HOLISTIC DEVELOPMENT IN YOUNG PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!
"Dancing is a fundamental part of who we are, and can have a huge impact on our ability to learn"
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