Emma Watkins: The former Wiggle on Frocktober and her new series Emma Memma

While we’re used to seeing Emma Watkins light up our screens in a yellow tutu, the children’s performer says she actually more partial to a colourful frilly number.

So, when she was asked to be the ambassador for Frocktober, the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation’s annual fundraising campaign, it was the perfect fit.

Despite two days of shooting in a show-stopping, custom-made gown by designer Jaimie Sortino — not to mention posing with some very cute animals — it was a bittersweet experience for Watkins.

“It’s kind of remarkably juxtaposed because the dress is so stunning but really resembles such a tragic statistic in relation to ovarian cancer,” she shares with Today from New Zealand.

“We were so honoured to have the dress made by Jaimie and that he created the dress in honour of his cousin.”

The campaign encourages participants to “frock up” for a day, week or the whole month of October to help raise funds for ovarian cancer research.

She says when the group first arrived at the farm for the shoot and saw the dress hanging up, they unconsciously took a moment to remember Sortino’s cousin Jenna, who passed away in 2020 from the cancer at age 33, the same age Watkins is now.

While Watkins hasn’t been affected by cancer personally, she hasn’t been without her own health struggles.

After being diagnosed with stage four endometriosis in 2017, and undergoing urgent surgery while on tour with The Wiggles, she’s been open about her experiences with the condition that affects one in 10 women globally.

Not that she’s let it stop her from achieving incredible things in her career.

After hanging up her tutu in October 2021, Watkins has poured her energy into creating new children’s character, Emma Memma, as well as finishing her PhD that involves incorporating sign language into performance.

“I was exposed to sign language quite early, I was about seven or eight, and my best friend at school had two deaf brothers. We were at school together, but they were at a deaf school in Sydney,” she says.

“We would go home and play together and hang out, and that’s really how I was introduced to the language.”

As part of the series Watkins is joined by Elvin Lam, who is deaf, to dance, sign and sing their way through videos that aim to promote a new and inclusive way to communicate with kids.

The team have been travelling around Australia, including Perth, to meet local families and to discuss how they can support the deaf curriculum.

“Whilst I’ve had some experience learning and conversing in sign language, having my really good friend Elvin as part of the show, for other deaf children and families, they’re able to see a role model from their community and that’s so important,” she says.

“I can never be that replacement for a deaf child.”

Ovarian cancer in Australia

• Ovarian cancer takes the life of one Australian every eight hours.
• Five Australians are diagnosed with ovarian cancer every day.
• The five-year survival rate for ovarian cancer is 48 per cent.
• About 1720 Australians will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer this year. Only 826 will still be alive in five years.
• Over the next decade, 14,000 Australian women will die from ovarian cancer.
• There is currently no early detection test for ovarian cancer.
• A pap smear does not detect ovarian cancer.
• If we had an early detection test, it could save the lives of more than 8000 Australian women over a decade.
• Treatments for ovarian cancer have hardly changed since 1992.
• Ovarian cancer is the most lethal female cancer, yet it is critically underfunded.

Source: The Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation