Breast Cancer Survivor and Speaker: Khevin Barnes

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For more than 35 years I've had the opportunity to work as a full-time stage magician, music composer and keynote speaker. I began my performance career in 1978 by touring with my magical stage show as "Dr. Wilderness" for the United States Department of Defense, visiting thousands of children in Japan, Germany, Okinawa, and Korea.

The shows featured education, music and magic with a natural history and environmental awareness theme. In 1981 I began 10 years of performances working with adult audiences at the world-famous Magic Castle club in Hollywood, California.

In 1989 my family magic show was taken abroad in a 7 month International tour presenting programs throughout Europe, India, Nepal, Thailand,New Zealand and Fiji.

I was hired by the Walt Disney Company to perform magic for corporate events, and in 1994 I created and co-produced "The Dr. Wilderness" primetime family television special for Earth Day, which aired on CBS stations nationwide. The program received several Emmy Awards. Later that year "Dr. Wilderness Inc." was launched as a nonprofit corporation bringing a variety of touring programs to performing arts centers from Oregon to New York, 3,500 schools and special events and festivals across the U.S.

In 2009 I decided to turn my attention once again to adults designing "Performance Lectures" about "Imagination and Creativity" for a variety of audiences. It was then that I began to speak aboard Princess Cruise Lines and Royal Caribbean Cruises and solidified my work as a corporate keynote presenter.

In 2014 at the age of 63, I was diagnosed with breast cancer while completing a year of residency at the Honolulu Diamond Sangha, a Zen Center in Hawaii. After mastectomy surgery I was compelled to continue reaching audiences around the world, this time with a new and very personal theme; presenting uplifting and informative stage shows exploring breast cancer in both women and men.

I believe that my programs reflect my years of entertainment experience as a magician and speaker, but more importantly they express my reverence and zest for life as I continue to have the pleasure of bringing a fresh, compelling and sometimes even humorous view of cancer to audiences of all kinds. I particularly enjoy sharing a "male perspective" for women with breast cancer, both as a cancer survivor and as the former spouse of a cancer patient who lost her battle with stage four ovarian cancer at the age of 47.

My “cancer connection" has been both life-changing and heartwarming for me, as it offers me a renewed sense of purpose and an unquenchable desire to serve and inspire others whose lives are touched by cancer. I'm also a long-time certified "Laughter Yoga" instructor, trained by Dr. Madan Kataria, the founder of the Laughter Yoga movement.

I would greatly enjoy the opportunity to speak to, entertain and inspire your group!

My promise is that my presentations will always include compelling stories, relevant medical news, light hearted insights, inspiration, some wonderful stand-up magic and often a song or two to guide my audiences through an hour of compassionate comedy and thoughtful commentary.