As I drove to Afton Press this April morning, my mind occupied with writing new sentences, suddenly I took a mental detour. The Jazz radio station, 89.3, caught my ear and attention and pulled me out of my writing ruminations. The slide guitar…yes, I heard that instrument in the jazz piece that played. Hearing the tunes of a slide guitar rushed me immediately to my childhood years and listening to my father play his 1939 Gibson Lap Steel guitar. In the quietness of my mind, I still hear his harmonious sounds.

My father at 18 years old had saved all his money to buy this guitar.  An amazingly determined accomplishment—his family lived in oppressive poverty during the Great Depression. My father’s band, Johnny Jay and the Blue Jays, had various gigs, but WWII disbanded the band. Hearing the jazz music on that morning drive touched a cherished memory that made my eyes swell with a missing sadness. Papa Johnny, as he was called, passed away twelve years ago, and I inherited his guitar and amplifier.  The jazz station’s music ushered me back to moments in my long ago past. My mind’s eye once again watched dad as he moved the slide up and down the neck of his guitar using his thumb-pick to pluck the strings.

Ah, those fond memories, remembered and deeply felt, faded me back into reality and where I was headed: writing the Minnesota history of ballet. I arrived at my destination, trying to focus on how many words I needed to write that day. It was a delightfully warm April day; a day meant for dancing outside.

I moved and rushed like a dancer toward the front doors. I hardly felt the burden of two heavy bags of books, files, and a computer.  I opened the building’s front doors, walked to the bank of elevators, and pushed the elevator button to send me up to the third floor and Afton Press. Much continued research and writing of Minnesota’s ballet history needed to be done.

I entered the office, greeted everyone, took out the library books and my files, turned on my computer, and connected the monitor.  As I sat down to begin writing, thoughts drifted back to the ride to work this morning.  I pulled up the history drafts where some recent research gave me intriguing anecdotes to add to the writing. Instead of the history drafts, I began this blog.

Terpsichore, the Greek muse of dance, inspired my fingers to dance on the key board. I felt drawn to share with you, the reader, a sample of my Author’s Note at the beginning of the history book. It hails back to my father’s music, my memories of it, and my dancing spirit.  Here is a paragraph of the book’s draft from my Author’s Note:

I danced and moved in our home as my father played on his favorite instrument—a 1939 Gibson Lap Steel guitar.  I grew up hearing him in his study practicing a wide range of music, from the “Flight of the Bumblebee,” by Rimsky-Korsakov to “Sweet Leilani,” a classic Hawaiian song.  I vividly recall one childhood summer when I asked my father to be the musician in my backyard dance production.  A large blanket became the make-shift curtain with my father seated behind it, off to the side.  The sidewalk and grass in front of the curtain became the stage.  My siblings and neighborhood friends danced to my imaginative choreography. The show opened with my father’s Hawaiian music wafting from behind the curtain. Pop music of the mid-1960s, blaring from a vinyl 45 rpms on a small record player, opened the second act with my naïve choreography entertaining a small, but friendly audience.

More to come….

Time flies, but so does all of life. Since my last blog, October Blues, I took a break from blogging, and instead focused my time and attention on researching and writing ballet’s history in Minnesota.  I’ve gathered research in all its forms—print, digital, audio, and video.  Now’s the time to put the hammer down and write. Time to ignore the intimations of spring that draw me outside.

I am a neophyte in historical nonfiction writing. With this first foray into nonfiction, I feel the yoke of accuracy on my shoulders.  Yet, I also feel the ebullience of digging deeper than deep into research and unearthing a trove of fascinating and untold ballet stories—some to be told; others not.

The last few sentences in my blog, October Blues, ended with this reflection: “I often pause in the midst of my writing and reread and rewrite a sentence several times, or rewrite a whole paragraph asking myself, ‘Is my writing descriptive enough? Is it historically accurate?’ I also hear my grammarian father’s voice, as if he were standing near and coaching me, “Georgia Ann, remember, writing is rewriting and do not get discouraged.”

Confidence, not discouragement, directs me to March On. My writing coach tells me to write more. My soul sister tells me to put my butt in the seat. One of my colleagues at Afton Press, well versed in blog know-how, told me, “You can do it.”  I responded with an arm and fist up, channeling Rosie the Riveter energy.  I also channel my grandmother’s energy; a Rosie the Riveter at Armco Steel in Butler, Pennsylvania.  As I march on, here’s a sneak peek of two sample artist stories, the likes of which you will find in my book project.

It’s early March in Minnesota, and a morning chill of fifteen degrees upstages the first glimmers of dawn’s light. In the dark, I slowly make my way down the stairs to the kitchen. My early morning ritual—down the stairs wrapped in a warm robe, to the kitchen, light the candles, and start brewing the coffee.

I shiver as I pull up the collar of my robe. The chill reminds me of some folk wisdom in the old adage, “March comes in like a lion, goes out like a lamb.”  Darkness wraps me against the cold wintery morning.  Quiet darkness, lit only by a few flickering candle flames. Sanctuary. I place my back against the radiator, grounding myself in its warmth, awakening me to rambling thoughts.

On one such morning, my early morning musing recalled celebrating my January birthday with two dancer friends. Outside, nestled around a fire pit, we snacked on fruit, fig jam, and macarons.  Champagne remaining chilled in its snow bank ice cooler.  We raised a cold glass to unique birthday celebrations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ballet memories abounded; a corps d’esprit that binds us forever together.  We laughed, reminiscing how one night, after a late ballet class, we sat on the building’s fire escape.  We had a bottle of room-temperature champagne for beverage and some nuts for nutrition and energy.  As we talked, envisioned, and planned the upcoming ballet production, our champagne became chilled.  To this day, we recall that story and say, “the night the champagne chilled backwards.”

A myriad of ballet memories, etched forever in my mind’s eye, fuels my energy to keep on writing Minnesota’s ballet history. One salient memory occurred during production week for The Sleeping Beauty—one of ballet’s golden reserves of classicism. 

Administrative minutia held me, the producer, hostage at the ballet studio’s small office.  The phone rang, and I hesitated, not wanting to be tethered to its ring.  I answered, however, with a rushed and terse “Hello.” A fragile and brittle voice of an elderly woman asked, “Are there any tickets remaining for The Sleeping Beauty ballet this weekend?”  I replied that a few tickets remain, and I asked her how many she would like.

She needed only one ticket.  Audaciously I asked her why she wanted to attend the ballet alone.  Paraphrasing a line from the Broadway musical A Chorus Line, she unabashedly answered, “Everything is beautiful at the ballet.”  For this elderly, possibly lonely ticket buyer, attending the ballet seemed to be a peak artistic experience for her. For many people, The Sleeping Beauty, a gem of classical ballet, and a veritable marriage of Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s music and Marius Petipa’s choreography, remains a ne plus ultra experience.

Let’s say you attend The Sleeping Beauty in a city’s historic and renovated theater with its gold-gilded décor and chandeliers lighting your way to the ushers.  An usher takes your ticket, checks your seat location, and directs you to your well-positioned seat close to the proscenium stage where every detail of the ballet can be seen.

As you glance through the playbill, the theater’s house lights slowly darken, signaling the audience to quiet their voices, listen, and look. The stage curtain remains closed as a hushed silence descends over the audience.  Ears open to hear the tuning of the orchestra’s instruments.  The Overture, French for the opening—a musical herald for the opening of a ballet.  The main curtain opens as the Overture finishes. The Sleeping Beauty ballet begins with its shimmering costumes, exquisite dancing, and stunning sets. Everything is beautiful at the ballet.

My findings and browsing through historical documents, and also listening intently as I hear dance artists’ stories, brought to my conscious surface a kaleidoscope of colorful facts, myths, and stories about ballet’s beginnings in Minnesota. Leonardo da Vinci’s voice from the ancient past speaks to us, even in our twenty-first century: “In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so, with present time.”  So, with ballet.

By Georgia Finnegan

As the autumnal beauty of October comes to a close, and winter’s frosty breath and cold blanket of snow have put my summer garden to bed, October days pulls forth poignant past memories. Celebrating my firstborn son’s birthday brings deeper than deep joy at the end of October, while the untimely death of my loving mother brings heart-twinging sorrow.  My son, now a young man, gave me Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast to read.  It holds an honored spot on top of my books-to-be-read that have piled high in my study this past summer.  One quotation from this book resonates well with me:  You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintery light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen….

During my summer’s research on ballet history, three books in particular—Celestial Bodies by Laura Jacobs, The World of Diaghilev by John Percival, and The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky, edited by Romola Nijinsky–caught my eye, and with edifying interest I read them.  However, many more illuminating books remain to be read.  Cooler autumn days made for a gradual drift into the approaching winter season.  I warmly welcomed the call to stay inside, read, research, and fine tune my writing skills.  Soft candlelight glow and a warm mug of coffee in the early morning hours ease me into my writing days.  Late dinners by the natural warmth of a wood-burning fire usher in the needed pause to my daytime writing. “In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy….” Albert Camus. My book on Minnesota’s history of ballet will continue to abundantly fill these upcoming wintery days of snow and ice.

By Georgia Finnegan

Summer thrills me.  Its kaleidoscope of color, clouds painting pictures in the light blue sky, and the sun’s warmth on my Minnesota white skin make me wake up early and go to bed late. Summer’s early morning light draws me outside.  I stroll across the grass, a cup of coffee in hand as my feet caress the morning dew and my eyes take in my garden’s cacophony of color.  Summer’s beauty summons the dance muse in me to move, and like the American poet Susan Polis Schutz wrote, Let us dance in the sun, wearing wild flowers in our hair.

Summer evenings bring wisps of gossamer clouds tinged in a rosy glow as the sun begins setting and the moon rising.  Hot and sultry days persist into late summer, but I linger longer as the evenings cool down and twilight, like a conductor raising the baton, signals the musical mating call of chirping crickets.  A perfect segue to autumn. As a hardy Minnesotan, I brace myself for winter’s blanket of snow and ice knowing that autumn foreshadows winter.  So I imbibe deeply in autumn’s cornucopia of fresh produce, the fruits of summer’s labor.  As John Steinbeck wrote in Travels with Charley: In Search of America, “What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.”

This summer, a global pandemic forever changed my life rhythms. No longer do I move freely from place to place, easily gathering with family and friends or attending events.  Yet, I choose not to focus on my drastic changes in lifestyle; instead, those changes have challenged me to make room to actively move forward in researching a history of ballet in Minnesota.  Two books in particular, The Ballets Russes by Vincent García Márqueza and Celestial Bodies by Laura Jacobs, impassioned me to begin digging deeper into my ballet research.

Summer is my favorite Minnesota season, and even though I want summer’s relaxed beauty to linger longer, I also want to ready myself for autumn and winter.  My new life rhythm gives me a glimpse of what the coming seasons need to bring:  unadulterated time to write and let my research become my words.  Once again, a new life rhythm is on my horizon.

Georgia Finnegan served as the Advancement Director for Minnesota Dance Theatre in 2017-18, and currently as an advisor to its Board of Directors. With over 30 years in the nonprofit industry in Minnesota, she focuses on education, and arts administration. Georgia, founder of Saint Paul City Ballet (renamed St. Paul Ballet in 2014), continued its growth and development for sixteen years, garnering foundation, corporate, and individual donor support. Georgia works with her husband, Erik Saulitis, a dance photographer, helping market his business, Danceprints. She is a firm believer that the arts, in partnership with corporate, business, and community support, augment the economy of a city and increases the vitality and aesthetic beauty of its community.

By Georgia Finnegan

Rivers draw me to them.  Flowing waters, gurlgling ripples, and iridescent rocks near a shoreline entice me to linger at a riverside and idly watch as present time moves on.  Perhaps this enticement is rooted in my Native American background; or, perhaps from living close to a river almost my entire life.  The Neckar River in Heidelberg, Germany, the Seine River in Paris, and the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers in Saint Paul have all exerted a hidden influence on me.  The most impressive influence comes from growing up and hearing my father often say his favorite phrase both sides of the Mississippi.  This phrase became my father’s way of affirming my efforts and achievements, however minimal or significant: “Georgia, that blueberry pie you baked was the best one, on both sides of the Mississippi“. Like flowing river water, these words touched me and made an indelible mark on my character.  Little did I realize that these words, both sides of the Mississippi, set me up for a river fascination. This quote from Leonardo da Vinci really resonated with my spirit, “In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time.”

On a bleak autumn day in November 1973 the belle et douce France, 4,200 miles east of the Mississippi River, beckoned me to come and study.  Destination Paris, the “City of Lights”. As the plane took off, I twisted my body to look out the window to give my au revoir to the river below and to my Saint Paul home.  Paris is nearly a perfect city for me to live and study.  The Seine River divides Paris between the Right and Left banks, as the Mississippi divides the Twin Cities between Saint Paul and Minneapolis.  As a consummate francophone, I always long to go back to France. when I do go, I also yearn to travel back westward to America, the Mississippi, and my home.

Stirring memories of rivers and places where I lived, worked, and danced capture my attention as I read and write during quiet early morning or evening hours. My current reading, A Dancer’s Twilight Tales, Volume II:  The Age of Ares by Loyce Houlton, holds me spellbound as I read her memories as founder, artistic director, and teacher at Minnesota Dance Theater (MDT).  I did not know her, nor did I train with her.  But I did know that grand jetés across the Mississippi River to the other city’s ballet and dance classes were discouraged.  My training, dancing, and teaching centered in Saint Paul, rooted in the classical ballet training of Lorand and Anna Andaházy.  I rarely “traveled” west to Minneapolis for any ballet or dance.  The Mississippi was not only a grand geographical divide, it was also a great cultural and artistic divide.  Towering giants of the ballet and dance world, Loyce Houlton in Minneapolis and the Andaházys in Saint Paul had two distinct perspectives on training and producing ballets.

After I hung up my pointe shoes, my career as a seasoned balletomane moved into arts administration. I then made that huge leap across the Mississippi to Minneapolis. “Traitor!” some people have teasingly called me.   My husband said he dragged me across the Mississippi with my heels smokin’.  I crossed over to the other side of the ballet and dance world, and began working at Minnesota Dance Theatre.

Loyce Houlton’s A Dancer’s Twilight Tales sits on the shelf in my study and beckons me to open it again and again.  Her descriptive words detailing her many artistic undertakings captivate me as I re-read paragraphs two or three times.  Loyce’s vision of the family in Act I of the Nutcracker scintillates with unique choreography and design.  The father in Act I whose kindly manner masks a wild and vivid imagination, turns into the giant woman of drag—Madame Bonbonniere with a three- foot pompadour wig, massive bosom, outlandish make-up…. Oh, it was fun plotting it all.  Oh, it is fun reading it all!

For me, A Dancer’s Twilight Tales, Volume II:  The Age of Ares puts to rest the great cultural divide between Saint Paul and Minneapolis–the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes.  Good ballet is good ballet, from wherever one hails.

By Georgia Finnegan

When June comes to Minnesota, my spirit soars. I imbibe in all that June offers.  It bursts forth with garden-fresh produce, Flag Day, Father’s Day, and summer solstice celebrations.  My body sways and moves when my memory sings a few lines from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s jovial salute to summer, “June is Bustin’ Out All Over” from Carousel.

Beyond the idyllic aspects of enjoying a Minnesota June, I finally took the courage to read my father’s memoirs of his Korean War experiences.  My father, John J. Finnegan, had his memoirs printed and bound nineteen years ago.  Only now have I mustered the courage and stamina to read it, knowing I would have a visceral reaction to the raw details of combat action.  My father wrote in the Forward to his memoirs: “The reading may be tough—but—so was the living and fighting in Korea”.

After writing those last two sentences and re-reading various sections of the memoirs, my mind wants to go back to my idyllic June musings.  My fondest memories of this courageous man, a veteran of both WWII and the Korean War, are not his army experiences; he rarely talked about them.  He loved music, and as a young man before enlisting in the army, my father had a band called Johnny Jay and the Blue Jays.  He played several guitars, banjo, and a harmonica.  Growing up I remember him practicing for hours on his favorite instrument—a 1939 Gibson Lap Steel guitar.  I heard a wide range of music, from the “Flight of the Bumblebee,” by Rimsky-Korsakov to  “Sweet Leilani,” a classic Hawaiian song.  I vividly remember one childhood summer day, when I asked my father to be the musician in my backyard dance production.  A large blanket became a make-shift curtain with my father seated behind it.  The sidewalk and grass in front of the curtain became the stage where my siblings and neighborhood friends danced to Hawaiian music wafting from behind the curtain.

My father was seriously injured in the Korean War.  He was blown off a tank by a grenade and then taken to Japan for surgery and then convalescence.  During his time of healing he asked for a typewriter and paper, and he wrote and typed without any editing: “ I did not have the time to properly rephrase the sentences, retype them, or correct the flagrant grammatical violations”.  He ardently wanted to record his war experiences so that “in the event something should happen to me” his young son and wife would know what he did in the Korean War.

The last sentence in his Memoirs of a Combat Cop ends with this statement: “Another chapter of my life opens tonight as I close this one, 24 January 1951.  The End”.

I salute you, Dad!

By Georgia Finnegan

It’s May.  It’s May.  The Lusty Month of May.  I distinctly remember May Day, 1977.   An early morning dawn woke me with its rose-dipped wisps of sunlight streaming through my windows.  I quietly got out of bed, headed to the hutch cabinet in the living room and pulled out my new vinyl album of the original Broadway musical, Camelot.  I removed its cover, turned on the turntable, and directed the diamond-needled arm to the track where Julie Andrews, as Queen Guinevere, sings her hallelujah to the month of May.  My body moved and twirled to the May Day music.  That was 1977; my primordial rite of spring had begun.  Not one lusty May Day has been missed when I play that recording and dance.  My children grew up hearing the song blaring throughout our home.  My ballet students knew that if May Day landed on a day when I taught class, inevitably a wild, almost ecstasy-like, ballet exercise was demonstrated for them to do.

I relish springtime and May fills me with abounding energy as I revel in new birth and beginnings.  It is as though May is my inside person’s birthday, while January is my public person’s actual one.  From the white mantle of winter and its hours of robed darkness, spring bursts into the fiber of my being.  I search my garden for the early intimations of new life.  I search for the signs of buds, unbelievably pushing through the crust of bark and branches.  I drive across a nearby bridge over the Mississippi River, craning my neck so my Irish green eyes can absorb the beauty of the tiny lime green tree buds.

With its delectable scents and sounds, May brings sweet and soothing memories of the mothers on the maternal side of my family–Mom, Granny, and Mum.  These strong-willed women gave me courage to take what life gives me and make the most of it.  This May I finished reading Next Year in Havana, by Chanel Cleeton, where maternal courage and resiliency spam generations of women.  These same quintessential characteristics describe my own maternal legacy.  My great-grandmother, Mum, danced and sang beautifully, but the Great Depression had her hanging wallpaper for extra income instead of performing.  My grandmother, Granny, was a “Rosie the Riveter” during the 1940’s and lost a finger on the job.  Once healed, she went back to work.  My mother, Frances, can best be described with an excerpt from her obituary, written by my nephew, Jack Finnegan:  Nurse, mother and grandmother, she nurtured, taught and protected with strength, faith, humility and humor.  A towering, generous spirit who gave selflessly.

May marks a date when courage and resiliency changed the course of my life forever.  On May 4, 1992, in the prime of health I had a cerebral hemorrhage.  Even though I was in and out of lucidity, I vividly recall being in intensive care and my doctor telling me that my sisters were here and wanted to see me, but they could not.  Out of my weakness, a resilient strength grabbed his wrist, pressed my fingernails into his skin and told him, “I must see my sisters.”  He acquiesced and said they could come in, but only for 30 seconds.  Once in my room, I remember my youngest sister, Kathleen, telling me, “I brought you the only flowers blooming in my garden, three red tulips, but they won’t let me bring them in.”

By Georgia Finnegan

A thin veil of darkness covers the first rays of daylight as I begin my morning rhythm.  Only the percolating sound of coffee interrupts my quiet time.  I step into my study, open the second drawer of my 1950’s desk, and grasp my waiting journal and daily readings. I’m in place, embraced by a sheltering home.

Thoughts of family, friends, and colleagues meander through my mind.  I miss their physical closeness and how easily we could visit, work, and dance before this novel coronavirus pandemic.  Digital togetherness takes center stage now and an attitude change is in order.

As a dancer I need to move my body, stretch my limbs and muscles, and explore all possibilities that exist to mesh everyday movements with ballet. Instead of classical ballet, I do what I call functional ballet. I commit to keeping my core muscles taut and held while I’m standing, aligning my shoulders and hips when I walk, flexing and pointing my feet as I sit, stretching my muscles in the small spaces of my home, standing on demi-pointe at the kitchen counter or bathroom sink, and racing up and down the stairs to engage my fast-twitch muscles.

A functional ballet exercise includes a good social distancing activity: walking and exploring the neighborhood. A deep longing for nature and the outdoors goes back to my childhood when every mid-summer my family took our annual trek from Saint Paul, Minnesota “back home” to Butler, Pennsylvania. With tingling excitement, I would climb into the back seat of my family’s barn-red Ford station wagon and head back home to Granny’s house.

Years later, memories of those annual trips still resonate within me.  I can close my eyes, open my ears, and hear the reverberation of the brick road against the car’s wheels as we safely arrive on the street where Granny lived.  I remember fearlessly exploring the gully and woods by her home.  I longed to serendipitously find a hidden creek with the melodious sound of gurgling water.

I never found a hidden creek, but life gave me a new home not far from my Saint Paul roots–Minnehaha Creek. Walking and exploring this creek not only exercised my legs but also refreshes my attitude.

I recently shared with a close confidante and friend, who is an extraordinary ballet dancer and coach, my thoughts how digital living makes for a dissonance in close relationships and that together apart demands an ever-resilient positive attitude. I asked her what she thinks when I say attitude. She belly-laughed and answered, “It makes me think of all the places in the world where you have struck an attitude pose.”  I threw my head back and also heartily laughed.  Yes, she knows me well. An attitude in ballet is my favorite pose.  I have ballet attitude photos from St. Petersburg, Russia to the Alpes in France to a beach in St. Martin’s Island to Minnehaha Creek.  A nineteenth century dancer, Carlo Blasis derived the attitude pose from the Roman statue of Mercury by Giovanni da Bologna.  He stated, Infuse your attitude…with feeling and expression.  With these uncertain times I need to infuse my attitude knowing that the winter of our discontent shall pass, and hope will bring a new normal and new understandings.

By Georgia Finnegan

Ballet in Literature

In preparation for writing this book, I read two novels suggested by Calumet Editions: The Dancers of Sycamore Street by Julie L’Enfant and Little Dancer Aged Fourteen written by the French author, Camille Laurens.  The Dancers of Sycamore Street woke me up to the dormant teenager inside me that longed to be a ballerina and to immerse myself completely in the artistic beauty of ballet. My adult reality knew, as the novel’s main character discovers, that artistic temperaments, power struggles and estrangement often taint the beauty of ballet.

Little Dancer Aged Fourteen completely astounded me. I realized that I had a shallow and naïve understanding of late-nineteenth century Parisian life. Laurens vividly portrays how poverty pushed young dancers, les petits rats of the Paris Opéra, into ballet.  With compelling research, Laurens describes the life of Marie van Goethem, Edgar Degas’ model for his statue, La Petite Danseuse.  In addition, Laurens shattered my naïveté about the impressionist artists of that time. Successfully describing the earthy and sensual human side of many of them.

Powerful Women

Both novels, written by women authors, give me encouragement as I reach into my outer space of imagination. I hail from a line of strong women:  a singing and dancing great-grandmother, great-great-aunt preacher, a colorful, bootlegging grandmother and a resilient, salt of the earth, loving mother. The stories of these three women, and how they maneuvered life’s detours, continue to resonate in my memories while their fortitude carries on in my genes.

Now it’s time to put that strong energy into writing. These are not my women stories, but stories about the movers and shakers of the Minnesota dance scene since the 1940’s.