Ken Hornbeck’s career as a stage actor and director spans over 30 years where he has worked both regionally, and in NYC. In 1986 he started his own theatre company called the Eclectic Theatre Company, based in NYC where he created an AIDS education show geared for teenagers, and which became his introduction to Theatre for Social Change. In 1989, he met Dr. Cydelle Berlin, the founder and Executive Director of STAR Theatre, a program affiliated with Mount Sinai Hospital’s Adolescent Health Center, and because of his work was asked to serve as Artistic Director there. This began a long collaborative relationship and the two of them worked with high school students, junior high and elementary students, creating age-appropriate, ensemble pieces around the subject of teenage sex education in the NYC area. Their program was so successful that they worked internationally as theatre trainers for the United Nations. Upon moving to Atlanta, Ken continued to devote his time to Theatre for Social Change while working at Emory University using theatre to address complicated diversity issues on campus including race, sexual orientation, and gender identification. He is currently an adjunct faculty member at Emory, where he teaches courses in human health through the applied arts. He can be contacted at: kdh1956.213@gmail.com. I spoke to him at his home in Atlanta, GA via Zoom.
Music by Manpreet Kaur, @manpreetkaur music
www.sacred-truths.com
Ken Hornbeck’s career as a stage actor and director spans over 30 years where he has worked both regionally, and in NYC. In 1986 he started his own theatre company called the Eclectic Theatre Company, based in NYC where he created an AIDS education show geared for teenagers, and which became his introduction to Theatre for Social Change. In 1989, he met Dr. Cydelle Berlin, the founder and Executive Director of STAR Theatre, a program affiliated with Mount Sinai Hospital’s Adolescent Health Center, and because of his work was asked to serve as Artistic Director there. This began a long collaborative relationship and the two of them worked with high school students, junior high and elementary students, creating age-appropriate, ensemble pieces around the subject of teenage sex education in the NYC area. Their program was so successful that they worked internationally as theatre trainers for the United Nations. Upon moving to Atlanta, Ken continued to devote his time to Theatre for Social Change while working at Emory University using theatre to address complicated diversity issues on campus including race, sexual orientation, and gender identification. He is currently an adjunct faculty member at Emory, where he teaches courses in human health through the applied arts. He can be contacted at: kdh1956.213@gmail.com. I spoke to him at his home in Atlanta, GA via Zoom.
Music by Manpreet Kaur, @manpreetkaur music
www.sacred-truths.com
Ken Hornbeck: Theater for Social Change
Ken Hornbeck: I had at least maybe even 5 actors who came out to themselves in the process and came out as LGBTQ as their identity in the performance, and went on to be activists. Before they really had a hard time coming to terms with their own orientation and when they stepped into the power of performing and identifying in front of 1400 people, it changed their lives.
And you know, a couple of times they would ask me, “I don’t know if I can do this.” Or they would say, “What do you think I should do?” and I said “It’s gotta come from you. You’ve got to be the one who decides to do this or not, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with deciding not to do it, it’s completely up to you.” And invariably I think they came to me by Saturday, I think, and said, “I’m ready to do this.” Sometimes it was Sunday (nervously laughs) but it was before the show, and said, “I’m ready to do this, I’m ready to come out to the school and to myself.”
And Whoo! Nothing quite like that.
Others in terms of their race and their experiences, with their various identities finding power in them, finding their truth and being able to announce and speak that truth. There’s nothing like that.
Emmy: Ken Hornbeck’s career as a stage actor and director spans over 30 years where he has worked both regionally, and in NYC. In 1986 he started his own theatre company called the Eclectic Theatre Company, based in NYC where he created an AIDS education show geared for teenagers, and which became his introduction to Theatre for Social Change.
In 1989, he met Dr. Cydelle Berlin, the founder and Executive Director of STAR Theatre, a program affiliated with Mount Sinai Hospital’s Adolescent Health Center, and because of his work was asked to serve as Artistic Director there. This began a long collaborative relationship and the two of them worked with high school students, junior high and elementary students, creating age-appropriate, ensemble pieces around the subject of teenage sex education in the NYC area.
Their program was so successful that they worked internationally as theatre trainers for the United Nations.
Upon moving to Atlanta, Ken continued to devote his time to Theatre for Social Change while working at Emory University using theatre to address complicated diversity issues on campus including race, sexual orientation, and gender identification. He is currently an adjunct faculty member at Emory, where he teaches courses in human health through the applied arts. He can be contacted at: kdh1956.213@gmail.com. I spoke to him at his home in Atlanta, GA via Zoom in 2020.
Emmy: Welcome, Ken! Thank you so much for joining me today.
Ken Hornbeck: My pleasure, thanks, Em.
Emmy: You’ve had a such a very full theatrical career spanning over 30 years. You were a stage actor and a director, and you’ve worked regionally and in New York. Tell me, how did it all begin for you? When did you know that you wanted to be an actor and when was it you were first drawn to theatre?
KH: Probably I’d have to say, (chuckles) it’s sort of a stereotypical story, the elementary school story of being in school plays and really feeling kind of like in my element as it were. I did lots of plays in my elementary school in Southern California. Pretty much every year you did at least one, sometimes two plays. They ranged from our sad, little 5th grade version of HAMLET, no MACBETH, (chuckles) I’m sorry, “Macbeth” to a full out new version of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” set in China (chuckles) with full makeup and little outfits and I got to be one of tailors and it was all pantomimed with the fabric that we were going to use to dress the king, the emperor. Every chance I got, I was in one of the plays, and hoping for the LEAD or a big part.
Emmy: Yes.
KH: The bug bit me early, but thinking about it, it was probably the fact that it was really the first art form that I ever was really exposed to, quite honestly. I think it was less about the fact that it was acting or drama, as it was about being creative, and being in some kind of art. So, I wouldn’t exactly say that I had the same level of passion as people who go on to really make it their work until they die.
So, I was passionate enough in being an actor in a way enough to pursue it, but many people will say, well if there’s anything else you can do, do that, because it’s such an insane business. And I will say that I have found it to be an insane business. I’ve just been so interested in so many other things in my life which is I suppose why I did so many other things along with working as an actor which I guess we’ll talked about as we go along here.
Em: And you told me this story when you were in “West Side Story”, and you were killed, and your little sister burst out in tears because she thought you really were killed.
KH: Not only did she burst out in tears, she SCREAMED, (laughs) and the whole audience was horrified. (imitating her sister) “My brother’s dead!!!” To her, it was very real, very real.
Emmy: That’s wonderful, aww. I was going to ask you, how does acting fulfill you? I mean, it seems that you’re drawn to many forms of art, but let’s focus on acting. How does it fulfill you once you became an adult?
KH: I think because it involves so much of the whole person. Not only does it take mental work, in terms of filling out a back story, and figuring out who somebody is and why they, why they behave the way they do, and of course you can’t ever really answer all those questions. But I love the idea of inventing, creating, figuring out somebody’s history that can be as deep and as rich as you want it to be.
Writing journals and diaries and doing other forms of research, and researching the time period and what’s going on and letting that impact your, your backstory and your work. And then the physical work as well as the collaboration with the director and the other actors, and the fact that there is also, hopefully, a full production that involves the other forms of art.
I do quite a bit of work in Musical Theater too, so, that whole element, that whole piece. It’s such a collaborative art form, and you’re in it with a team and you create this wonderful event for the audience and that completes the circle. It’s never really done until the audience comes in and gives you what they give you, so I think all of those things are just thrilling. Specific performances I was a part of that you throw together in 10 or 11 days and there it is!
I did a production of “Sweeny Todd” one time in Rhode Island, and we did it, we put it together in absolutely 10 days from start to finish, and I remember being in the opening number and just, just weeping, and not supposed to be, I was not supposed to be crying, but I was, because it was such a thrill, such a thrill, and nothing quite like it. Those are the sort of things that you hope a production will be, it often doesn’t turn out to be that exciting or thrilling, but when it does, nothing compares quite to it.
Emmy: And theater forces you to be right in the moment.
KH: Otherwise, it’s BAD! (laughs)
Emmy: (laughs) Right. Let’s fast forward, now. Around 1986, you’re living in New York City as an actor and in 1986, you founded and directed your own theatre company called the Eclectic Theatre Company, in NYC.
KH: Right.
Emmy: And coincidentally, at that same time, an epidemic which we know to be caused by HIV, human immunodeficiency virus, was causing what we now know as the AIDS epidemic: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. This was reaching global proportions at that time. At that time there were over 31,000 AIDS cases identified in the US that year. By 1989, that number was 100,000. What you did was so fascinating! Through your theatre company, you created an AIDS education show for teenagers, and this was your initiation into Theatre for Social Justice or Social Change. Tell us how did this come about?
KH: I had been living in Dallas, Texas, for the early ‘80s, late ‘70’s early ‘80s’ doing professional work, feeling like I needed to do something with myself, right around 1984, I needed more training, I thought. I was getting an itch to leave Dallas and do more work, or do something, so I applied to Julliard, and NYU and Circle in the Square Theater School and I got accepted into Circle in the Square so, that got me to New York City. And the time period you’re talking about, was when I had finished Circle in the Square and there I was; I had been the oldest person in the school, in my clas at the time, and left CINS and thought, “What do I do now? What do I do now?”
One of our teachers, I think, the voice teacher said, “You know, you really ought of think about being a producer. You’ve got that organizational brain. You know, some kind of something.” I not sure what kind of advice she was giving me, but it got me thinking about starting my own company so with my roommate, Alan, my roommate Alan and I starting thinking about how we could do some work, self-produced work. And so, there were all these senior centers in NY, places you can go in and perform and they’ll pay you if you came in with a show and we started putting together these thematic 45 minute little musical productions, using songs from Broadway musicals.
We did a Christmas show I think, first, a Christmas/Hanukah show first, and then toured them around and I hired actors and we just did it. We didn’t form a non-profit right away, we just did work. And so one of our sites was the New York University Rehabilitative Medicine Center on the 13th floor at NYU Hospital and that’s happened to be where a lot of AIDS patients would go.
It was basically a hospice because at that time people were dying from AIDS, from AIDS complications, and so, primarily young men would be wheeled out and would watch our show and it was devastating and it was also hopefully uplifting for them to get a little entertainment.
But we felt a purpose in the work that we were doing. And the guy who ran that, Bernie said, “You know you guys should put together a musical for teens, about AIDS prevention because, you know, it’s starting to reach the teen population, now.”
In my naivete, I thought, “Oh, what a great idea!” So I got together a bunch of adults about 6 of us, and we worked by committee and we put together this 45 minute musical and it was kind of a horror theme take opp where HIV attacks kind of the city kind of a deal, sort of like
A 50’s monster movie kind of take-off thing with all kinds of music and we toured it around as best we could. We worked with the Health Department to get the facts that they in those days then straight.
Through that tour and through that I met Dr. Cydelle Berlin who had a program out of Mount Saini Medical Center, the Adolescent Health Center and she had a program called Star Theater and we performed for those actors, her actors, and that started my collaboration with her. I think she liked our show, the Eclectic Show, and was intrigued that there were other people doing the work.
So, I started working WITH her, and as you said, that was really the way that I got involved with Theater for Social Change. Theater for Prevention, for Social Justice. I really didn’t know anything about it before. And what I learned from working with Star Theater was really how to involve youth. Because we had been a bunch of adults writing this show as I said, and what Cydelle had been doing and I learned how to do better through working with her was involve the youth, the teens and post teens that were part of our company, in creating the script and in some cases, the lyrics, and the music, and everything. And that was when it was most effective was when you, you get theater BY teens, for teens. It started about an 8-year period of time, 8 ½ years, working with Star Theater as the Artistic Director before I moved here to Atlanta.
Emmy: So, this is really fascinating. Cydelle was working through Mount Sinai Hospital’s Adolescent Health Center. Her STAR theatre was affiliated with that, correct?
KH: Yes, it was a program of the Adolescent Health Center, it was basically the prevention arm of the Adolescent Health Center. The AIDS prevention arm.
Emmy: And you were with her for 8 years and you were essentially producing these with and for the teenage population and I think you just answered the question, but this was extremely important public health information that you were distributing to a population that needed to hear it. I find this interesting because I too have a public health background, and ordinarily material is presented in a classroom or a lecture format, you know, for that age group, but using a theatrical format is so much more effective. How did that work for you?
KH: Well, it absolutely was more effective. And the thing that works with theater, and not just educational or social justice theater, but theater in general, is we see ourselves up on the stage portrayed through the characters and so when they make certain decisions or behave in a certain way, we identify with that behavior. So, you have your role modeling and all that kind of STUFF worked into the script and so maybe the scene is about negotiating safer sex, and so you have one character who’s maybe putting pressure on their partner about not using a condom and the other character is saying, “No, no, no, no, no!”
Somebody in that audience is going to identify with one or two of those characters. And when you give the audience the words to say through the characters that in a sense, is giving them not only permission to stand up for themselves, and do what they want to do, what they feel is right for themselves, you’re also showing them how to do it.
And so, that’s much more impactful that some OLD person giving them a lecture on “How they should do something.” Because you’re at an age where “I don’t want to hear it from an adult, I want to hear it from one of my own.” Peer education is much more effective, and that’s been proven through lots and lots of evaluations.
We were pretty much using that model but we had to make it hot and sexy and current and relevant and the music had to work, the music had to be something they could identify with. Then at the very end of the performance, the characters, the actors would stay in character and answer questions through a trained facilitator, so then they really get a chance to ask those questions they’ve been dying to ask. If you create a safe space, then they were able to ask those questions. That was the capper, so a lot of people would watch the show and say,
“Gosh, I thought the Q&A at the end was the coolest part of all of it, and I really got my questions answered.” It all worked out very well, I was proud of the work we did.
Emmy: The kids were talking to the character, right? Like, “Billy, why did you say that?’
KH: “Why did you feel like it was okay to do or say that?” It wasn’t just about HIV, our show was a broad based sexual education, so we dealt with gender, sexual orientation, STD’s, early sexual activity, unintended pregnancy, abstinence, you know, waiting, waiting to have sex until you’re ready, all sorts of topics.
Emmy: You went to high schools all around New York State, is that right?
KH: New York City primarily, but yes, all around, and then we would go to other states as well. Short tours.
We started with a high school show, and then we expanded to junior high, and then we eventually did something that we called High/Low where we created a show for post high school/young adult college aged people and also for 5th and 6th grade, and so we ended up with a whole range of age-appropriate shows.
Emmy: My gosh. And eventually, so exciting, you and Cydelle began working internationally. First of all, you were asked to attend and facilitate certain parts of workshops, is that right? And you were asked at one of those workshops to become a theater trainer for the United Nations. How did that happen?
KH: Well, we had been given a contract with the CDC, at one point, to do replications around the country by hosting and running conferences where groups that were doing theater-based education would come and we’d all work together and we’d train them in the methodologies.
We ended up getting a grant from the CDC, a big one, I think it was a 3-year grant from the CDC, to do, to host conferences, run conferences, regionally in the US and a great big national conference or two, I can’t even remember, it’s been a while ago.
We were doing a lot of national work while STAR performing and working in New York City and I had already moved here, and had started my own program in Atlanta, so we were doing all that kind of work, back and forth, back and forth, and I was still working with them, and doing my own thing here; and then someone that Cydelle and I both knew, from all of our network in New York, had gotten wind of the fact that the United Nations, the USNPA, which is the population fund arm of the United Nations, wanted to start doing work with all of the different Youth PEER agencies that are around the globe, basically they were establishing a network of PEER education programming.
In 2003, we got invited to, first actually, Cydelle got invited and she dragged me along fortunately, (thank GOD!) to develop a curriculum for these trainings to train young people in how to be peer educators in various parts of the world. That was the mission.
So, I think about 15 of us met in Estonia and we created this INTENSE, wonderful curriculum; it took us about 10-12 days to develop it and that became the curriculum for training young people, youth leaders in the Middle East, and Eastern Europe, and Northern Africa, all over the place, in how to be real advocates for each other, how to educate around HIV and sexually transmitted infections, and all sorts of other things, homophobia, you name it.
That program grew over the course of 10 more years, at least, so Cydelle and I became the theater trainers, and we also did other kinds of peer education but primarily our job became to be master trainers to teach young people and leaders and all that about how to really incorporate theater in their programs. And that was a great, a great time and that pretty much wound down around 2013 because the UNSPA started taking up the refugee cause and so, a lot of the funding went into caring for refugees and navigating that. We did a lot of great work in a lot of, lot of wonderful places.
Emmy: I find it very compelling that even though you are trained in and have continued to perform classic American theatre, and musical theatre, and you do it very well – I might add.
KH: Awww. Awww.
Emmy: You’ve been so drawn to public health issues all your life, particularly the issues that concern young people, and that you’ve found a way to use theatre to weave theater in to get to the heart of the message. Why are these public health issues so important to you?
KH: Health in general has always been fascinating to me, and important to me and I guess in another life I would have practiced medicine, or gone into medicine, I’m not exactly sure, but I think it’s what unites and connects all of us.
I think it started with HIV, that’s probably what it was for me, and it was a frightening, frightening thing to be, to be around at the age I was.
I remember the EXACT moment and time in Dallas, when I read the first article about it and I was probably about 26 years old, I guess, right at that age where it was starting to impact my friends. People that I knew, right and left, were getting sick and dying. I lost some of my very best friends to AIDS complications.
When the idea was presented to us to do something with the theater about it, like I said, I was naïve and not really knowing how to do that, but being excited about trying to figure out how to do. As I said, we adults did our best, we created this zany, kind of imaginative and interesting show to us (Laughs), but I don’t know how well it resonated with the teenagers, we tried. Some of them got it.
Because of that, like I said, I went on and I was able to really be a part of something unique and magical and effective for a long time, and able to work on the same idea here in Atlanta, and by then, I had learned a thing or two.
And by then, over the course of the years, it also works in bias, it also works with other kinds of, it’s effective with mental health issues, it’s effective with pretty much ANYTHING. To put something on the stage, or involve the audience, get THEM on the stage, use improvisation, use role play, use whatever to open up the can of worms and get us talking about what’s really going on. Without it being drama therapy, I guess it’s a form of drama therapy in that you’re using the mirror of theater to unearth the truth.
I still use in in my classes with Emory, it’s still a part of my life.
Emmy: Let’s talk about your time in Atlanta. At the end of the 1990s, you moved to Atlanta, Georgia where you became involved at Emory University. Many different hats here, you serve as Director of the Issues Troup and the Sex Ed Squad as well as you led a number of Diversity education activities on campus. So now you’re working with the college aged population. And I know that you’ve worked addressing very challenging diversity issues on campus with college aged kids, such as race, sexual orientation, gender identification. Would you just briefly explain your theatrical approach to these issues of diversity and how does an interactive ensemble begin to even address these issues?
KH: Well, again, right around 2003 I was approached by Emory University, I already had a theater company there called “Enact”. I was approached by the Office of Multicultural Programs and Services to bring back to life a program called “Issues Troupe” that had been apparently a part of the University years ago started by Vinny Murphy who was a professor at Emory University. In fact, it was he who suggested me for the job. They wanted some way to address racial tension that was going on not only on Emory, but all over the place in a way to address diversity in a creative effective way on the campus.
And I said, “OK!” (laughs).
Now, what is it going to look like. It was going to be part of Freshman Orientation, we knew that. We knew that they wanted a show of some kind, that they would perform, that we would be performing for the 1400 freshman at orientation, in this big event. And that’s all I knew. I knew the time frame that we were going to have about 4 days, to go from nothing to a show that we would be able to perform for these 1400 freshman so, A) I was probably out of my mind to think that would be something we could do! I was allowed to sit in on the auditions that year with the actors going to Theater Emory, and I pulled together a cast and I got my rehearsal schedule together: Friday night through Monday afternoon was all we had, and we had to get this thing together.
I didn’t know what it was going to look like, I didn’t know anything, except it was going to come from the actors, just like anything else I’ve ever done. We developed the work through improvisations, we hone it and we script it and we finally get it performance ready and that’s all I knew. And we developed a process, I think even in that first year, of really putting everything out on the table, all the stereotypes, all the words, all the name calling. And I just kind of invented it as we went along, the structure and how to develop it. A lot of it came out of spoken words, we used that, we used improvised scenes.
I was lucky enough that first year to have this phenomenal actress/dancer who was also hearing impaired and she wanted that to be part of her story. She also wanted to use dance, so she did this phenomenal dance as part of the show so everything revolved around the identity, everybody’s individual “identity” and what they brought to the table and all of the microaggressions that were in all of the scenes and all of the monologues, and it turned out to be a really, really incredible show, and so thank god, so “WE WERE A HIT!”
And then they ended up expanding that program a little bit, and we ended up doing Spring Performances for a while, and then every year they would have us come and do the freshman orientation performances, and we expanded here and there a little bit and became a group that would deal with situations as they came, came up if there’d be some of inflammatory experience at the university or some other, some other forum that needed to be addressed, we would be the go to.
Emmy: What was the impact of these events on the audience and what was the impact on the actors, can you speak to that?
KH: Yes, I can speak especially to a couple of people, especially in terms of coming out. I had at least 3 or 4 actors, over all the years, I did that from 2003 to 2015, and I had at least maybe even 5 actors who came out to themselves in the process and came out as LGBTQ as their identity in the performance, and went on to be activists. Before they really had a hard time coming to terms with their own orientation and when they stepped into the power of performing and identifying in front of 1400 people, it changed their lives.
And you know, a couple of times they would ask me, “I don’t know if I can do this.” Or they would say, “What do you think I should do?” and I said “It’s gotta come from you. You’ve got to be the one who decides to do this or not, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with deciding not to do it, it’s completely up to you.” And invariably I think they came to me by Saturday, I think, and said, “I’m ready to do this.” Sometimes it was Sunday (nervously laughs) but it was before the show, and said, “I’m ready to do this, I’m ready to come out to the school and to myself.”
And Whoo! Nothing quite like that.
Others in terms of their race and their experiences, with their various identities, finding power in them, finding their truth and being able to announce and speak that truth. There’s really nothing like that. That was a powerful, powerful thing to be a part of.
Emmy: You’ve shared with me, that over the years you’ve had people who have, years later, who have gone on and they see you on the street who have come up to you and thank you for their experience.
KH: (shyly) yeah. (chuckles)
Emmy: Isn’t that right?
KH: Yeah, that’s lovely when that happens. Yes, but it, yes, it just humbles me to think about that happening. Yes, it does. It does happen. But I’m grateful to what they bring to it. So, I always feel like saying, “Wait, you’re the one who did it, not me. I didn’t do anything.”
Emmy: Right. That’s right. Yep. You were just in the doorway saying, “Go ahead and step through if you want.” And what about the audience, do you get any feedback from the audience members at these events?
KH: Yes, particularly “Issues Troupe” since that’s the last thing we talked about; we would always get such terrific feedback. Even right after the show they would come up, the audience would come up and say, “Finally somebody is talking about this stuff honestly,” and “I saw myself up there. This was so real.”
I think they finally adopted the slogan “As real as it gets” which I really like. Because my goal was always to make it real, and to make it not of that surface kind of macroaggression thing that happens, well it happens a lot more now, I suppose, than it did then.
Most aggression that you experience is micro, it’s people, maybe not even intentionally being racist, or intentionally being homophobic or whatever other phobics or isms; it’s just something that people say, they’ll say it off the cuff not realizing they just offended somebody. And so, initially in the improvs, the first night or so, what the actors would come up with were those more obvious ones and my job was really to have them dig deeper, “No, no, no, what’s under that? You’ve got to go deeper; you’ve got to be more real.” It’s very easy to make “funny little scenes” about ‘isms’ but the real challenge is to really deal with what’s really going on. That was always our goal and combine some humor with all of it.
Emmy: Humor is essential.
KH: It is. It is. They won’t listen to you if there’s not some humor to it.
Emmy: Right. You’ve done some films for Emory University on issues of issues of diversity, alcohol abuse, suicide prevention and eating disorders. These are also really under the Public Health umbrella using the medium of film. And you’ve written and directed these pieces, is that right, working with Emory students for the campus?
KH: We’ve done a few different things like you said, we did one series of 4 films, that one was about alcoholism and one was about suicide prevention or suicide and diversity and then we had one other one.
The fun part of that was I had just seen a wonderful movie called “Elephant” where all the different characters sort of interact and they sadly, it’s about a school shooting, but it’s a brilliant movie, and you follow one character down a hallway and you see another character going in the opposite direction and later you follow the character that was going down the opposite direction, so all of the characters are revealed in little bits coming from their own points of view and you go, “Oh!I just saw…” and you get to know everyone.
So I thought it would be kind of interesting if all of the characters in the different films all converge at a party. And so, you see the suicide character at the party when you’re following the story of the kid who’s dealing with alcoholism and so they’re all kind of related and we showed them all in the same night so it kind of gave them a universality.
And so, we filmed, we filmed all of them in one week-end and it was, it was INSANE!!! But, I would love to do more of that kind of work. Again, I’m not really a film director by any stretch and never would claim to be, but film is a powerful tool just like everything else. We explore film as a useful tool for public health in the class that I teach and the students get to make their own movies.
Emmy: Yeah, let’s talk about your position at Emory University. Now you’re an adjunct there where you have created courses in Human Health through the applied arts. Which I find so fascinating; I would have absolutely signed up for your class when I was in college. Can you explain how you bridge health and applied arts in a college curriculum?
KH: Well, yes, it’s a year-long course, well 2 semesters. In each semester we are studying 3 different art forms; I team those with a study of a specific health issue. So, for example, this year our first unit was about eating disorders and nutrition and our bodies and social media. Social media portrays this perfect image of the perfect body and usually it’s maybe really thin or potentially gaunt or ultra-muscular for males and that’s held up as the ideal and so what does that do to our self-esteem and our ideas about our bodies.
In that unit we have a dance workshop with the fabulous Lori Teague who is one of the dance instructors at Emory. And she takes us through this wonderful journey over 2 periods where we look at our ability to express ourselves and our emotions and our feelings about our bodies. Fabulous, it’s just wonderful.
We look at diet, we look at nutrition. I have a guest come in who talks about eating disorders looking at dance therapy, movement therapy as a tool in healing our attitudes about our own bodies and our food and what we eat and how we take care of ourselves.
And then we do a Mental health unit and we combine that, we team that with Art Therapy. So, tomorrow I have an art therapist coming in for a couple of sessions to give a practical workshop on with art therapy and the students get to play with paint and play with colored pencils and learn about how art therapy helps us with things like depression and anxiety disorder and ADHD and all sorts of other things.
And the final unit is film and chronic disease. And so, we look at films like, “Philadephia” and “Still Alice”, and “Terms of Endearment” and we look at HIV and we’ll probably look at COVID-19, we’re going to look at Alzheimer’s, and other chronic illnesses and how film can raise awareness, heals us, help us deal with things and that’s when the students get to pick a disease and they work in teams and they create their own short films about those diseases.
Emmy: Wow.
KH: That’s the way this particular class works. And it’s fun. It’s really fun. And it’s all on Zoom! It’s ALL ON ZOOM!
Emmy: I know.
KH: It’s going alright, but it’s a different world, it’s a different world.
Emmy: That’s right. Like our conversation is on Zoom!
KH: It is. It is.
Emmy: I just want to ask you about kids, Ken. I know that you have worked in theater camps. Small children theater camps as a theatrical director.
KH: 6 years, yes.
Emmy: And why is it that theater is important for children.
KH: Oh, gosh. Team building obviously. Collaborating. Getting something done as a team is important. That comes up first for me because I see that happen. And I see them joyously coming together at the end and being so happy that they as a group were able to pull something off that was magical. I think that’s important.
Sports does that, too but there’s something, sports can’t do everything, and it’s wonderful for the non-sports-y kids, or the sports-y and creative theater kids to have something that they can be proud of.
It’s also all about the imagination and creativity and talent and being able to get up and be someone else. Be a different temperament. Be a different age. Be a different person from who you are. Be a different gender. A different everything.
It’s also just fun. I think there’s nothing like drama workshop (smiles) “Play Practice”, all that stuff. (laughs).
They’re learning lines, they’re learning music, they’re learning dance steps. It helps the rest of the brain and there’s more research about that, working on that side of the brain, the artsy side of the brain, the creative part of the brain helps the entire brain. It helps development and all those sorts of things. So, on many, many levels it’s important to have ‘play practice’. (Laughs)
Emmy: Yes, and there’s something about ensemble work which can be really very healing to the nervous system, you’re being seen, and you’re being heard for any kid who might have some troubles at home or what have you, it can be very healing and nurturing to be part of an ensemble group like that.
KH: It truly can, it truly can.
Emmy: (playfully) On your resume it says you can do accents. Would you do an accent for me?
KH: Oh, for god’s sake! (laughs)
Emmy: Scottish! We all want to hear Scottish!
KH: (laughs) No you don’t, No, you don’t. (laughs long)
I’ll give you a line from “Brigadoon” which I was in in 10th grade and I played “Mr. Lundy”, and I had a great big gray wig on and my father said I looked like a leprechaun even though that’s not exactly Scottish, it’s more not Scottish. But I looked like a leprechaun nevertheless, so picture sort of a chubby little leprechaun about 5’7” saying, (Scottish accent) “Why hello, Fiona, what a pleasant surprise!” and then I told the Mr. Lundy story, about (Scottish accent again) Brigadoon and how everybody got to go to sleep for 100 years or they’ll all die, (Scottish pronunciation) they’ll DEE! (laughs)
Emmy: (laughs) Oh, my gosh, thank you so much, Ken Hornbeck. It’s been a pleasure.
KH: (Laughs) Oh, Emmy Graham. It’s been a pleasure for me too. I’m so grateful. Thanks so much.
Emmy: You’ve been listening to sacred-truths with Emmy Graham
Music by Manpreet Kaur, @manpreetkaur music. My guest today was Ken Hornbeck.
To contact Ken, please go to kdh1956.213@ gmail.com.
Please visit our website, go to www.sacred-truths.com Thank you for listening.