Let me explain:

If you organize monthly Dada-influenced events, how exactly would you handle a topic such as Cancer?

How do you creatively inquire in such a thorny direction? How do you approach this emotionally-laden topic, without falling into a sentimental ride?

Well, is not easy, but to Christian Meoli’s credit, he did it. Yes, the executive producer of Cabaret Voltaire pulled it off.

A graceful line up of Cancer related survivors filled up Cabaret Voltaire’s 48^th event.

First, a mother and daughter read out loud a fictitious dialogue between them called: My mommy has boo boos in her breasts. The soft exchange of words between mother and daughter set the tone for the remainder of the night. Gracefully, the two traversed the not so easy road of opening, both the night and their hearts to the public. By the end of their performance, the public had already warmed up to a difficult subject.

First, the mother finds a graceful way to let her daughter know that she doesn’t hug her not because she doesn’t love her but because she’s still in pain after her breast surgery. As the fictitious dialogue evolves, the pain subsides: by the end, mother and daughter embrace, just like in the old days. Except, daddy is no longer home. After years of faithfully standing by mommy’s side, he’s tired, and he wants out. Like most men, he doesn’t have the slightest idea how to confront pain.

But his absence becomes the mother’s strength… she can no longer afford not to be strong and always there for her daughter. So she picks up the pieces of a broken marriage, closes wounds related to sexual abuse in her own childhood days and she, like a butterfly, amidst blood and effort, oh such an effort, is reborn again to soar.

The public, by now silent, responds. The applause is genuine… and long. It seems the underlying theme of tonight’s topic will be survival, and how it indelibly marks those who’ve gone through it.

Next, model and actress Sharon Blynn. If I had been unaware of the night’s theme, I might have assumed that she was just one more fashionably conscious LA patron. Of course, she’s not. I mean, she’s totally aware of her beauty and her looks and her clothes, but she’s here not as a model but as an ovarian cancer survivor.

First, she admits that after being treated with chemo therapy for the first time, she lost all her hair and part of her identity with it. Yes, her self image did not include an image of herself with no hair. Was she beautiful any longer? How could she be with no hair?

Then, very naturally, she discusses the psychological effects of being deprived of those organs so closely related to motherhood and therefore, to womanhood: the ovaries.

Up until her diagnosis, she hadn’t even thought about having children. Suddenly, the urge set it: should she try to get pregnant before the last sliver of organ was removed forever? Could she afford to have such a risky pregnancy? Would she be considered a woman if she could bear no child? All these not-easy questions lingered in her head… and lingered… but life has a way of teaching us to choose faster: her doctor informed her that the remainder of her left ovary could still potentially develop cancer and so, the recommendation was to remove the rest of it to make sure the disease stopped there. What to do?

Soon, she had no choice, nor doubts: let my womanhood be defined in completely different terms, she thought. And she was right. And to continue her fight, not only did she survive but better, she’s thriving. She is convinced women can develop self esteem based on different values than those normally instilled in them. To that effect, she’s started a website called www.baldisbeautiful.com to help those facing similar situations.

Other guests included assorted cancer survivors like a cartoonist by the name of Leonard M. Cacholla who’s comic strips were displayed at the lobby for all to see. A poet, perhaps indulging the audience in the most Dada-moment of the night, carrying instruments, pills and all sorts of objects, stood up in front of the crowd and after a somewhat long silence, started a non stop dialogue.

Nothing was left untouched: the disease (throat cancer), the pills taken, the chemicals involved in the therapy, the sounds of the heart and mind as revelations of the disease arrive in its owner’s consciousness. All was fair game: a man can be vicious with himself, especially if he feels he’s been born again. And apparently, most cancer survivors do. After the initial shock, such change is introduced in the cancer patient’s life that in the end, the disease, miraculously, turns into a blessing. Perhaps only because it forces those traversing through it to look at life anew. And this is a trick few other lessons in life can teach us so rapidly.

Later, another cancer survivor dressed up as a nurse reads what I think is the longest poem on barbiturates and chemicals after the beat generation. She has a knack for the bizarre and nothing’s stranger than those viscous substances being pushed with needles down our bloodstreams. So poetry, like chemistry, can be made of unintelligible formulas. The French symbolists would be proud…

To close the night, other cancer survivors who’ve graduated from local support group workshops, went onstage to share some of their individual triumphs: one now writes poetry full time, another, eternally shy, now sings, mind you, she sings a capela and in case you want to know, she does just fine.

As the event unwinds and comes to an end, people head to the lobby. There, some refreshments and mingling follow. People are so comfortable they don’t want to leave right away. As a Cancer Support Group leader attending that night tells me: “I am really thrilled being here you know… because this isn’t some boring fundraiser or benefit. Instead, you’ve got cancer patients entertaining other cancer patients. I think that’s spectacular… yea, that’s what’s special about tonight”

As I head to the car with my companion, the thought of my own father, recently diagnosed with cancer, stirs in my mind: how I wished my father had been present. How I wished he lived here and he could see how full of light and courage these survivors are. Remembering that Meoli told me in an interview that the whole topic for the night is a response to his own discomfort with it after his own mother died of it a few months back, I think that the bravest attitude is simply to try.

Cabaret Voltaire is a monthly Dada-influenced event held at the Steve Allen Theatre at Center for Inquiry West. Go to www.cabaretvoltaire.org for further details about upcoming events for the rest of the year.