For many years now, UCLA has had many different dance clubs – competitive, beginner, style-specific and cultural. However, it was only this academic year that UCLA welcomed the very first dance club where dance is used to promote mental health and well being, and that is Psypher.
Matthew Diep, a fourth-year psychology student and entrepreneurship minor, founded Psypher to make mental health more approachable — and we had the pleasure of talking to him about how he has merged his passion for psychology and dance through this club.
Her Campus: When did you start dancing?
Matt Diep: I first started dancing for fun during my freshman year of high school seven years ago, but then I stopped. In my senior year of high school, I was facing my own kind of problems with mental health and felt like I had hit a really low rock bottom. That was when I started dancing again and I took it more seriously this time.
HC: How did dance help you overcome some struggles you faced in your life?
MD: Well, there were a whole lot of things that led me out of that bad place in my life. A big part of it was reconnecting with my family and my cultural roots, and also my Christianity. However, through dance, I had so much fun and at the same time, I met a lot of cool people in the dance community. Many of them were Asian American like me, so we shared a lot of the same values and struggles because of our cultural backgrounds, and a lot the discussion would circle back to mental health. It made me realize I was not alone in this and the dance community ended up becoming this huge support group for me.
HC: Is being a psychology major related to your passion for dance?
MD: Yes, in a way. I wanted to major in psychology because I noticed that I, along with many others, have mental health issues and a lot of it has to do with our cultural understanding of mental health and the resources we have. I wanted to find a way to make mental health more approachable and accessible for everyone. Because dance was what made it possible for me, I wanted to try use dance to make mental health more approachable and accessible for others. This is where Psypher comes in. I wanted to create a space where people can have conversations about mental health and refocus dance not as a competitive outlet but as an expressive one.
HC: Where did the name Psypher come from?
MD: In Hip Hop, a “cypher” is a freestyle circle. Anyone can enter the circle and rap, freestyle, or dance in any style. In a cypher, it is kind of scary because you have to stand out in a crowd and show who you are through your craft. I thought that this was very relatable to “Psypher,” spelt with a “P” like in “psychology,” because this club is about stepping out and speaking about a topic we are not so comfortable with.
HC: What has been your favorite part about Psypher so far?
MD: Because in Psypher, we host one workshop per week where anyone can show up to, I always love listening to new stories and experiences, and then dancing with everyone and seeing each person’s own styles come out. We also had a really fun workshop where a music therapist came in with 50 different percussion instruments and we all just played the drums together, talked about relevant issues, and just vibed with each other.
HC: Do you have any suggestions to those who are seeking to start their own club?
MD: The number one thing is to have a clear passion. In reality, you might not know all the logistics or the format of how your club is going to be. For example, I just knew I wanted dance and mental health to go together but I didn’t know how. However, you are never going to know if you can do it if you never tried, so just try. Secondly, don’t do it alone. Put out the idea and see if anyone supports it. Then, collect a team and split up the big jobs. Things will always go wrong in the beginning but then you talk about how to improve it with your team, collect feedback from the people, and eventually, it all gets better.
Thank you Matt for sharing your story, your passion and your tips with us! For more information on Psypher and its workshops, visit them on Facebook.