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An excerpt following dancer Jan Bolwell's experience with breast cancer
The credits for this documentary
Titless Wonders
Television (Excerpts) – 2001
Performer Jan Bolwell instinctively knew when she found a lump in her breast that life was about to change profoundly. In this excerpt from Gaylene Preston's breast cancer documentary, Bolwell opens up about surgery and treatment, and how it inspired her 2001 solo dance show Off My Chest. Bolwell's double mastectomy spurred a desire to express — through dance — the loss thousands of Kiwi women experience each year. Bolwell's interview is interspersed with her rehearsing and performing Off My Chest at BATS Theatre in 2001. The documentary includes several Kiwi breast cancer stories.
The most terrible thing about breast cancer is that you can have this life-threatening disease and not feel sick.– Jan Bolwell in documentary Titless Wonders, NZ Herald, 10 October 2002
Key Cast & Crew
See all 19 credits
Acknowledgements
Presented with thanks to Aotearoa/New Zealand Film Heritage Trust – Te Puna Ataata
Made with funding from NZ On Air
Music
'The Journey of Matuku Moana' composed by Gillian Whitehead
Tags
- audience
- bats theatre
- beach
- breast cancer
- breasts
- choreography
- creation
- dance
- dance show
- diagnosis
- disease
- double masectomy
- drugs
- emotional trauma
- family
- gillian whitehead
- grandmother
- grief
- health
- helen todd
- hope
- hospital
- intuition
- jan bolwell
- loss
- maternity
- middle age
- native american ceremony
- new zealand on air
- nicole cosgrove
- nz classical music
- nz on air
- off my chest
- operation
- prostheses
- recovery
- rehearsal
- seattle
- sister
- solo show
- stage design
- strings
- talking heads
- te whaea
- theatre
- toi whakaari
- travel
- wellington
- women
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