Peter Lovatt: 'Dancing can change the way you think'

Dr Peter Lovatt is head of the University of Hertfordshire's Dance Psychology Lab.

Dr Peter Lovatt has been head of the Dance Psychology Lab at the University of Hertfordshire since founding it in 2008. Prior to this he trained in ballet, tap and jazz, and worked as a professional dancer. Last summer he wrote, produced and performed in Dance, Doctor, Dance! The Psychology of Dance Show as part of the Edinburgh festival fringe. In March he gave a talk at TEDx Observer.

How can dance change the way people think?

We've had people in the lab dancing and then doing problem-solving – and different sorts of dancing help them with different sorts of problem- solving. We know that when people engage in improvised kinds of dance it helps them with divergent thinking – where there's multiple answers to a problem. Whereas when they engage in very structured dance it helps their convergent thinking – trying to find the single answer to a problem.

You've been studying the effects of dance on people with Parkinson's disease…

Yes, we know as Parkinson's disease develops it can lead to a disruption of the divergent thinking processes. So we thought if we used improvised dance with a PD group we might see an improvement in their divergent thinking skills, and that was exactly what we did see.

Next we would like to study what it is about dancing as an intervention that has as impact on neural processing. One possibility is that when they dance they are developing new neural pathways to get around dopamine-depleted blockages.

Watch Peter Lovatt's talk at the Observer's TEDx event earlier this year.

How else can dance change how we think?

There have been several papers looking at the self-esteem of ballet dancers in training – and what they've found is that girls in their mid-teens have significantly lower self-esteem than non-ballet-dancing girls. There are two explanations for this. One would be that girls with low self-esteem choose classical ballet because the struggle for perfection reinforces their poor self-image. Another theory says that ballet training subculture can be very detrimental to a young girl's self-esteem because they are constantly being told they are not doing it right and that the body shape issue is very important in classical ballet.

Which explanation do you think is correct?

We are trying to test these two hypotheses in the lab by comparing data from 600 dancers in different dance groups. So we're looking at things like comparing classical ballet dancers with Indian classical dancers – the latter don't have to wear tight-fitting clothing in training. We're also comparing them with burlesque dancers who are very happy to show a fuller body. If it's the case that girls with low self-esteem choose ballet there's not a great deal we can do about that. But if the classical ballet subculture might lead to eating disorders and self-harm then that's something very important we should be flagging up.

Is there a dance style that is good for self-esteem?

Anything where there's a high degree of tolerance for not getting it right. Things such as ceilidh dancing people smile, laugh and giggle, and they are adults and it's absolutely fine. It's wonderful. There have also been studies that have found that dancing in baggy "jazz" clothing is better than tight-fitting clothing for the dancer's self-esteem.

Is it correct that women think men whose ears are the same size are better dancers?

It sounds like nonsense but a study by Brown et al found that physically symmetrical men were rated better dancers by women. A second study by Fink et al focused on men's fingers. They measured the 2D-4D ratio – the relative length of the second and fourth digit, an indicator to exposure to prenatal testosterone. He found that those men with a high degree of prenatal testosterone exposure were again rated as more attractive and masculine dancers.

You've built on this research?

I went to a nightclub where we offered people free entry if they took part in the study. Wemeasured fingers, their ears, their fertility, where the women were in their menstrual cycle, their relationship status, whether they were looking for a mate. And our findings were very similar. Those men with high 2D-4D ratio were rated as more attractive dancers. We also found something unique: the women signalled their degree of fertility through their body movement by isolating and moving their hips, which made men find them more attractive.

So is their a causal link between factors such as symmetry or hip-movement and being an attractive dancer?

Some people, such as Brown and Fink, argue that your hormonal and genetic make-up is being signalled by the way you dance. They posit a direct link. But it might not be that at all: imagine you are a really beautiful person so whenever you go out to a club, everyone looks at you and that fills with you with confidence – that might be what makes you dance in an attractive way that people find even more attractive. There might be a link, it could be an association though behaviours that makes you more confident.

So female performers in pop videos dance as if they were at the most fertile point of their cycle?

Yes, they do. There are often lots of images of women's hips moving in isolation. Often it's not the most attractive form of dancing – it's an artificial enhancement. What's interesting is that people who look at these women and tell us why they find them attractive never say: "I just spent the last three minutes looking at her hip region", which is what our data suggest they are doing. Rather, they find all kinds of other reasons to justify what they think.

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Ruby Wax: 'I think I became a cartoon to escape how ill I was'

As soon as Ruby Wax arrives for our lunch at Zuma in Knightsbridge, she starts obsessiing over the fashionably dressed man at the next table. Her eyes flicker back and forth, taking in his designer clothes and Aviator spectacles. "Rich boy," she says, exaggeratedly mouthing her words. When his female companion turns up, Wax is all a flutter. "How much do you think she's worth?" she asks in a loud whisper. "I'd say 50 million." Her eyelids bat frantically. Her lips twist at the corners, breaking out into a vulpine grin. The newly arrived diner flinches. "Oh, OK, now she knows we're talking about her," Wax says, turning to face me. "Embarrassing."

For Wax, the American-born comic famed for her brash irrepressibility, the primary appeal of eating out is the opportunity it affords for people-watching. "That's why this – " she gestures at the table, now filling up with an array of sashimi dishes, "is a bit false. You're asking me all the questions but I want to find out about you." She skewers a piece of grilled tofu with her chopsticks and for a moment is totally silent, rolling her eyes and flapping her free hand as though she is about to cry. Then she groans with pleasure. "Mmm, have you tried that?"

When the waiter asks us about the food, Wax replies that it is "orgasmic" and peppers him with questions. Soon, she has discovered that his name is Claudio, he was born in Brazil and considers himself a fairly good dancer. Claudio giggles. Wax tilts her head flirtatiously. She smiles, her teeth twinkling in the light like the studded diamonds on her Theo Fennell necklace. Within seconds, Claudio is smitten and falling over himself to offer us special platters, "compliments of the chef".

Over shared dishes of light langoustine tempura and a punchy tuna tataki, Wax admits: "I love figuring people out." As a student, she took psychology at the University of California, Berkeley but dropped out after a year. Now, after retraining as a psychotherapist, Wax is studying for a masters in neuroscience and cognitive behaviour at Oxford University: "I have 11 classmates. They're all doctors and intellectuals." She takes out her iPhone to show me pictures of herself in a gown and mortarboard at her matriculation ceremony, mugging for the camera.

Part of Wax's fascination with how the mind works comes from "trying to find out what was wrong with me". Over the years, she has battled depression and bipolar disorder, with several spells in the Priory. For a long time, her illness went undiagnosed – "People thought it was glandular fever" – and she would be buffeted through a four-yearly cycle of frenetic spikes of energy followed by slumps of "nothingness" where the pain was unbearable. "I've spoken to women who've had depression and cancer and they've said the cancer was easier to deal with," she says, unblinking.

Wax recently turned her experiences into a one-woman stage show, Losing It, which she will be performing at the Edinburgh Festival. "It's not a show about mental illness," Wax insists. "It's really more about how none of us know how to live our lives. Everyone is bluffing. It's about those women who do Pilates five times a week so they can strengthen their pelvic floor and be able to lift a carpet. It's about when the list-making becomes extreme. I used to wake up in the morning dripping in sweat, having to buy a light bulb."

The first performance of Losing It was in the Priory two years ago. "We played mental hospitals for a year. To see people wake up [from depression] and start to laugh is really satisfying." The show has been "the happiest experience of my life because… I'm speaking the truth rather than doing anything shallow." At her lowest ebb, Wax had suicidal thoughts. "That was part of it, but I knew I wouldn't do it." Since finding the right medication, she has got better at recognising when her depression is about to spiral out of control. "I have to slow down," she says. "The doing too much is a sign of something else. Even on holiday I find it difficult to relax. I'm the one who has to go kayaking."

Is she difficult to live with? "Yeah, but I married my husband [television producer Ed Bye] for the gene pool. I was conscious that he would bring to the table a) length and b) the ability to be a rock." Her three children, Max, 22, Maddie, 20, and Marina, 17, are "so happy. They're the opposite of me". And two out of three of them are also tall, so the marital plan worked quite well.

Her 2002 autobiography painted an unflattering picture of her parents. Edward and Berta Wachs were Austrian Jews who fled to America from the Nazis in 1938. Growing up an only child in Evanston, Illinois, Wax was "an introvert". Her mother was an obsessive compulsive housewife who covered every available soft furnishing in plastic. Her father sold sausages and was a strict, sometimes violent, disciplinarian.

She thinks now that her mother too suffered from some form of mental illness. "She could have been saved, that's the sadness. A couple of little drugs…" Did they eat a lot of sausages at home? "Oh yeah," she says. "We ate so many sausages my mother would put wings on each side and say it was chicken."

At 16, she discovered a talent for comedy. "I was not attractive to boys and I wanted to be, so I started to be funny." She laughs. "It didn't work. I got a lot of gay guys." After dropping out of Berkeley, Wax came to the UK and studied at the Royal Shakespeare Company where her contemporaries included Alan Rickman and Zoe Wanamaker – both now close friends. Wax ended up writing for Not the Nine O'Clock News, French and Saunders and Absolutely Fabulous through the 1980s and 90s. But she is probably most known for her 1996 BBC series Ruby Wax Meets… in which she interviewed celebrities including Madonna, OJ Simpson and Imelda Marcos, alternately cajoling and cowing them into submission. In one memorable scene, she posed with a pair of Madonna's crotchless knickers over her head. "I think I became a cartoon to escape how ill I was," she explains.

Then, without warning, Wax was fired. "It makes me furious," she says, through mouthfuls of spicy beef. "Did I do something wrong?" Well, did she? "No! I mean, at the beginning I was very controlling because I was so scared, but at the end I was quite cool about it all. I loved it." Does she miss television? Wax pauses. "It would have ended at some point because women are replaced and I had 25 years; I was luckier than most." She takes a sip of Diet Coke. "Now, I go to Oxford...[and] if I hadn't broken with TV, that wouldn't have come up, so in a way I'm grateful."

She confesses she is scared of getting older – she refuses to give her age but, judging from the cuttings, Wax is 58. In person, she looks much younger: her features are small and delicate. Her eyes are always darting to and fro, as if looking for new material.

Does Wax still think she is funny? "I do. I'm not so sure I'm smart though." She grins, then looks at her watch. A car is waiting outside. After persuading Claudio to put the banana sponge pudding in a doggy bag, she takes her leave. "God I wish I could eat here every day," she says, eyeing up the rich boy at the next table. He looks up at her with an expression that lies somewhere between terror and adulation. Wax gives him a dazzling smile and then dashes out of the restaurant, doggy bag swinging from her hand.

Ruby Wax: Losing It is at the Edinburgh Fringe, 5-29 August; edfringe.com

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