When Maggie Kudirka was diagnosed with stage four metastatic breast cancer at 23, her world turned upside down. Working as a professional ballet dancer at the Joffrey Concert Group in New York City, she never thought cancer could strike a young woman living a healthy lifestyle.
Now 32, the Ellicott City resident has used her love of ballet to help support her fight against cancer for the last eight years with a special performance called “No One Can Survive Alone: A Fundraiser Concert for the Bald Ballerina.”
This year’s show, set for Sunday, will be her last, Kudirka says, because her cancer has spread to her bones, liver, lungs and brain, making it difficult to keep performing.
Shortly after her diagnosis in 2014, Kudirka founded Bald Ballerina, a social media movement raising awareness of metastatic breast cancer in young women. Then she began organizing annual ballet benefit concerts to help with medical expenses.
The concert will feature Kudirka along with other dancers and will include a reception with refreshments after the show, raffles and a silent auction, according to a news release.
She said it means a lot that so many of her fellow dancers support her by performing in the concert.
“All the dancers donate their time and donate their performance, so to have them willing to come and perform and take a weekend, even if it’s their only weekend off, to perform, those things mean the world to me,” she said.
Maeghan McHale-Hobbs, of Greenville, South Carolina,met Kudirka while training together in dance school. This year will be her fourth performance in the Bald Ballerina concerts.
McHale-Hobbs said her decision to perform was a “no-brainer.”
“Most of us who are performing in the show, we all know each other, we all grew up with each other, we all trained together. It’s a special bond that you don’t easily let go of,” she said. “When [Kudirka] asks any of us to come and do this for her, it’s without a question that we would come back and help her in any way that we can.”
Jasmine Nikitenko, of Manassas, Virginia, who serves as artistic director with her husband, Yuri, at The Academy of Russian Ballet, will be bringing a group of students ages 11 to 18 to perform.
Nikitenko said she wanted to have her students perform to help them learn lessons on empathy and gratitude.
“It’s a way for [students] to realize that life is finite and that you should really be thankful for every day because you don’t know what tomorrow could bring,” she said.
Yuri Nikitenko was Kudirka’s teacher at the Ballet Royale Institute of Maryland in Columbia.
Kudirka said she hopes her story will inspire others battling cancer or those who have loved ones battling cancer.
“I hope [my story] helps [people] and tells them not to give up,” she said. “If they keep their head up and keep doing what they love and not lose who they are, they can come through the other side of this dark world and this dark situation.”
The concert will be at 2:30 p.m., Sunday, at the Smith Theater at Howard Community College at 10901 Little Patuxent Pkwy., in Columbia. Tickets are $25-$35 and can be purchased at the door or online at baldballerina.org/concert.