VSA Program Enables Expressive Learning, Artful Healing for KCH Patients

LEXINGTON, Ky. (May 19, 2016) — With their legs folded in the yoga stance called Lotus pose, sisters Anayia and Armani Happy sat knee-to-knee on Anayia’s hospital bed, tapping the silver cylinders on sets of Indonesian xylophones.

After a few initial strikes of their mallets, the Happy sisters were entranced with the mellow sound produced by a gentle tap on these foreign instruments. With no prior training or practice with the xylophones, the two girls played their instruments to create an extemporaneous musical arrangement. As soon as the budding percussionists established a consistent and confident rhythm, musician Gregory Acker joined the ensemble with a flute solo — kicking up the energy in the Kentucky Children’s Hospital (KCH) room.

Acker then reached into a trunk full of abstract instruments and swapped out the sisters’ xylophones for a set of shakers and a West African hand drum. He then invited the sisters to use their instruments to perform and sing a familiar childhood song — the Alphabet Song —but with a West African twist. When the girls came to the letter ‘P’ in the song’s sequence of letters, they paused to shout a West African saying that translated to “let’s dance.”

Acker is a musical artist supported by a grant from the VSA Kentucky Arts in HealthCare program, which distributes funding for health care facilities to coordinate visits from creative and artistic professionals. These artists offer visual art, instrumental music, clowning, drama and other activities to assist with the healing process, interrupt the monotony of hospital care and empower patients to express themselves. In the past 15 years, KCH has received more than $25,000 from VSA award funding to bring artful healing to patients.

“It’s one of the nicest things I do in my artistic life,” Acker said of his visits to KCH. “You meet people in a really challenging place in their lives. Finding the beauty in life is super important at that point.”

Acker, a teaching artist who is part of the Sound Community in Louisville, Kentucky, enlivens patient rooms at Kentucky Children’s Hospital once a month by providing patients and families with the novel experience of playing musical instruments indigenous to West Africa and Indonesia. Pulling a trunk filled with cymbals, drums, shakers, xylophones and other musical instruments behind him, Acker stops in each pod of the hospital to invite children, families and sometimes hospital staff to try their hand at a few of his musical instruments. Acker, a former PeaceCorp volunteer who was based in two African countries and Indonesia, specializes in world music with study experience in India and Indonesia. With permission from the patients, he records a CD, which the families can take home to remember a positive moment during their hospital stay. 

In addition to Acker, KCH’s VSA grant supports visits from visual artist and muralist Christine Kuhn and Cambo the Clown, who entertains children and families with a combination of music, humor, and juggling and magic tricks.

“While our health care providers and Child Life team make every attempt to serve the needs and maintain the comfort of our patients and families, we realize that the hospitalization experience carries a tremendous burden, especially for a child who’d rather be playing,” Erin McAnallen, the VSA child life coordinator at KCH, said. “Getting artists here to engage with the children truly makes a difference. These artists turn a time in life that could be a lasting negative memory into something positive and enduring for the family.”

VSA Kentucky is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing inclusive arts and education programs for children, youth and adults with disabilities, in addition to professional development for artist and teachers in schools and communities statewide. For more information, click here.

###

UK is the University for Kentucky. At UK, we are educating more students, treating more patients with complex illnesses and conducting more research and service than at any time in our 150-year history. To read more about the UK story and how you can support continued investment in your university and the Commonwealth, visit  uky.edu/uk4ky. #uky4ky #seeblue