{"id":442253,"date":"2025-12-12T11:25:25","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T11:25:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/442253\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T11:25:25","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T11:25:25","slug":"philadelphia-nutcracker-ballet-dancer-is-a-cancer-survivor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/442253\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia \u2018Nutcracker\u2019 ballet dancer is a cancer survivor"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know!<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

The Philadelphia Ballet\u2019s annual staging of \u201cThe Nutcracker\u201d has begun its holiday run, and, as usual, the company\u2019s principal dancers rotate through various characters during the four-week production.\n<\/p>\n

On Friday, Nicholas Patterson will make his \u201cNutcracker\u201d solo debut as the Cavalier, dancing the showstopping pas de deux with the Sugar Plum Fairy.\n<\/p>\n

But a year ago, Patterson could barely walk due to punishing rounds of chemotherapy. At 28 years old and at the top of his profession as a dancer, Patterson was laid out by a diagnosis of Stage 4 cancer.\n <\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know what my life was going to be like, if I would ever dance again,\u201d Patterson said during a break of \u201cNutcracker\u201d rehearsals. \u201cYou humor your worst fears in that moment. I wasn\u2019t focused on ever dancing again, I just wanted to live out my life.\u201d
\n\"TwoIn his first year as a soloist for the Philadelphia Ballet, Nicholas Patterson is dancing the role of the Cavalier to Lucia Erickson\u2019s Sugar Plum Fairy. (Emma Lee\/WHYY)\n<\/p>\n

Patterson has been with the Philadelphia Ballet since 2019, promoted to soloist during the 2024-2025 season. Angel Corella, the ballet\u2019s artistic director, said the diagnosis hit everyone in the company hard.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody deserves anything like this, but especially Nick,\u201d he said. \u201cHe\u2019s such a positive person. Everybody loves him in the company. He\u2019s one of the few people that just gets along with absolutely everyone, and he\u2019s such a hard worker.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

At the start of 2024, Patterson thought he had the flu, feeling fatigued with swollen lymph nodes. He could not get through a day without taking naps. Doctors said his symptoms were consistent with Epstein-Barr virus, or mononucleosis.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the cloak. I was testing positive for mono during all of this,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s actually quite common, where people are testing positive for mono but there\u2019s actually an underlying, more severe situation that they don\u2019t realize.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

By fall 2024, Patterson\u2019s condition had worsened and he went to an emergency room. That is where doctors determined he had an advanced stage of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.\n<\/p>\n

He was admitted into a treatment program at Penn Medicine\u2019s Abramson Cancer Center<\/a>. Patterson said the staff there are \u201cmiracle workers,\u201d in spite of especially grueling treatment they put him through because he is a dancer.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of my age and being a professional athlete, they felt that they could be pretty aggressive with the treatment,\u201d he said. \u201cI was going in every two weeks, doing four chemotherapies every treatment.\u201d
\n\"NicholasPhiladelphia Ballet soloist Nicholas Patterson was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2024. Several rounds of chemotherapy temporarily robbed him of his strength, his focus and his hair, but he\u2019s back to dancing, filling the role of the Cavalier in this year\u2019s production of \u201dThe Nutcracker.\u201d (Emma Lee\/WHYY)\n<\/p>\n

The stepped-up chemotherapy caused not just nausea, fatigue and hair loss, but neuropathy, or nerve damage that can be permanent.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cYou hit the wall immediately with the first treatment and you\u2019re thinking, \u2018Dang, how can this get any worse?\u2019 And it does,\u201d Patterson said. \u201cIt just gets worse and worse and worse.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

During his chemotherapy treatments, Patterson wanted to come back to the ballet studio to be with the company, which Corella barred him from doing for his own health.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was kind of dangerous. He couldn\u2019t get even a cold from another dancer,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was hard for him to stay away from the studio.\u201d
\n\"NicholasNicholas Patterson rehearses for his role as the Cavalier in the Philadelphia Ballet performance of George Balanchine\u2019s \u201dThe Nutcracker.\u201d (Emma Lee\/WHYY)\n<\/p>\n

To get through the low points of chemotherapy, Patterson relied on his wife, fellow dancer Erin Patterson, and sought moral support from other dancers who had survived cancer<\/a>. There aren\u2019t that many. Patterson went to the internet to search for anyone who had been through what he was experiencing.\n<\/p>\n

On Instagram, he connected a fellow cancer dancer: Chiara Valle<\/a> with City Ballet in San Diego, California, who posted pictures of herself during cancer treatment and her ultimate recovery.\n<\/p>\n

Patterson said he would message Valle about how terrible he was feeling and she would respond in the affirmative: Yes, she had felt the same way.\n<\/p>\n

He said even a single supportive voice made him feel part of a community.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can be so helpful when you\u2019re going through something so traumatizing to know that somebody else has also gone through it and have seen the other side,\u201d Patterson said. \u201cI\u2019m in the midst of the dark ages, but this other person has gone through that, they\u2019ve overcome it, and they\u2019re now dancing again at this elite level.\u201d\n <\/p>\n