‘Realities of Survivorship’: Onco-Ballet on stage at Irvine Barclay Theatre this month
- Share via
Kay Tanaka was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in December 2023. She was 32 years old.
“I never expected to hear the words: ‘You have cancer,’” said Tanaka, of Lake Forest. “Everything kind of changed from that point.”
She did eight rounds of chemotherapy over the course of four months. She went into remission in April 2024.
“I was just so grateful that the treatment worked for me,” she said. “When I was first diagnosed, all I could think about was getting into remission and getting to that point in the journey — but when you get to remission, it’s not as wonderful feeling as it might seem because you have to rebuild your life from there.”
She credits nonprofit, Irvine-based Onco-Ballet Foundation with helping her through this part of her journey.
The organization, founded in 2023 by former professional ballerina and two-time breast cancer survivor Anna Wassman-Cox, offers free and low-cost classes and performance opportunities to help with physical strength, mobility, emotional well-being and connection for those in the cancer community.
The group is producing its now-annual ballet production at Irvine Barclay Theatre on Saturday, Oct. 17, at 5 p.m. with the theme ‘Realities of Survivorship.’ The cast of 55 cancer patients and survivors have been rehearsing for months and will perform five original ballet pieces.
The evening will also include an educational panel of medical experts and patient advocates with insights on survivorship and the healing role ballet can play in those facing cancer.
Breast cancer survivor Abigail Simon, formerly with American Ballet Theatre and Joffrey Ballet, is flying out from New York City to perform. Acute myeloid leukemia survivor Masha Cherezova, formerly with Russia at the Novosibirsk Theatre of Opera and Ballet, will also be on the stage.
Tanaka said before she had cancer, she thought if someone finishes treatment and goes into remission, that’s the end of it and life resumes back to “normal.”
“But that’s not really the case,” she said. “What I learned after going through treatment, it really takes a toll on both the mind and the body … Of course, I’m grateful for treatment, but it also affects a lot of different things and causes a lot of side effects … It destroys the cancer, which is great, but it also kind of destroys some of the good things that were also going on, so you have to almost rehabilitate your body and then you have to kind of rebuild a new normal for yourself.”
Wassman-Cox danced ballet professionally from age 15 to 20 and was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 25. She had surgery before she graduated from college, then started chemo two weeks after graduation. She went into remission, but had a recurrence at age 29. Wassman-Cox, now 33, offered her first ballet class at a Hoag Survivorship Symposium before officially starting Onco-Ballet.
“When I gave this class, there were over 50 people in the room,” she said. “And every single person in that room, from both the patients, survivors themselves to also the staff was up on their feet moving and dancing, and you could feel that joy.”
She realized she could modify the more traditional format of ballet into a gentler approach.
“It can actually be very similar to yoga in that way where it’s very meditative movement,” she said.
She said for cancer patients and survivors, there are numerous benefits of this kind of ballet — from psychosocial to physical.
“On the psychosocial side, we really do see the community-building piece where people who maybe had never met before and had maybe gone to support groups but didn’t really find their people, they have found their friendships,” she said.
Outside community-building, Wassman-Cox said they’ve found through participant surveys, a decrease in anxiety and depression.
“We’ve seen people’s confidence be boosted,” she said.
She’s heard from students that the six-week classes and performance opportunities help them feel like they’re really achieving goals.
On the physical side, there are many effects resulting from cancer treatment that ballet can help.
“I had really bad neuropathy and it impacted my balance,” Wassman-Cox said. “For both myself and others, they’ve self-reported that it’s helped with their balance and just even fatigue levels.”
Since starting, Onco-Ballet’s growth has been speedy. The organization now has a New York City chapter that hosted its first performance in May. In Orange County, classes are now offered in two hospitals, including through Hoag and MemorialCare, as well as at partner dance studios. There’s now a Los Angeles class series too and the organization is expanding in Northern California. Plus, there’s interest in Seattle, Houston, Chicago and Boston.
To assist with the growth, Michelle Maasz Brouwer, who formerly served as director of programming at Irvine Barclay Theatre, became a board member for the Onco-Ballet Foundation in February.
“I have worked in the arts world my entire career and I was eager to shift my volunteerism and my community support to something that was more in health and human services,” Maasz Brouwer said. “I wanted to support that work and that transformation and that kind of celebration and culmination of the work that they do together through the classes and rehearsal process. I think [Anna] really provides an excellent experience and it is just a new take on health and healing and wellness that I don’t really see ballet getting integrated in very much.”
Diana Mendoza, 48, of Irvine, is also a board member and is a two-time breast cancer survivor. She was first diagnosed in 2005 and re-diagnosed in 2018.
“It’s not a support group where you’re sitting around a table and telling each other things,” she said of the organization. “It is much bigger than that … [Onco-Ballet] is groundbreaking.”
— Peralta is a TimesOC contributor.
