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Donna Salli’s Play About Finnish-Americans in Upper Michigan
Rock Farm Performed In English and Finnish
The Rock Farm, a play about heritage, love, family and the magnetic attraction of
home, made its American stage premiere October 9-10 in Chalberg Theatre at Central
Lakes College in Brainerd.
Written by award-winning Brainerd poet and CLC English instructor Donna Salli, the
short play is her love song to Finnish-American roots. She is from the Upper Peninsula
of Michigan, born to parents of full Finnish descent still living in Wakefield.
Salli said that the play is about family, flavored with humor and worry. The characters...
are products of the culture and society Salli grew up in and were inspired by a time and
place that many in the audience will recognize, said Salli.
The Rock Farm or Kivistön Tila in Finnish has been translated into Finnish and was
first performed a year ago in Joensuu, Finland. Salli attended during an exploratory trip
pursuing the possibility of study aboard exchanges for
CLC and Finnish students.
The play was performed twice at each showing in
two distinct styles. The first version was performed in
English by a cast of local volunteers, and the second
version was in Finnish, translated and performed by
Theater Fiasko of Finland. Erik Steen of Brainerd
directed the English version and Tuire Hindikka of
Theater Fiasko directed the Finnish troupe.
In a short talk before the afternoon performance,
Patrick Spradlin, head of the CLC theater department,
described how the play came to be performed in
Brainerd:
“This story starts about 3 years ago. Ann Toumi,
an English instructor at Central Lakes College, was
Ann Toumi, American/
Finnish Liaison
Erik Steen, director of Rock Farm in its English version; Donna Salli, playwright, Tuire Hindikka (Joensuu), director of Rock Farm in Finnish
in Joensuu, Finland. She met Tuire Hindikka, director
of Teatteri Fiasko, who suggested that CLC host them
European Photo/Video Artists Address Borders
and Globalization at Nash Gallery In Minneapolis
A selection of internationally renowned Finnish and European-based artists who
deal with issues of dislocation and migration or challenge manifestations of mental and
physical borders in a globalized world will have their work shown at the Katherine E.
Nash Gallery beginning January 22. The exhibition is titled: almos(t)here: New bearings
from contemporary artists in Europe. The artists approach these global and political
issues from varying angles – some artworks are rooted in personal experience, others are
based on investigation and direct engagement with different communities and people.
Many of the artworks in the exhibition throw into question ideas of national spaces,
territory, and borders. The video installation 2 x 3 Borders by Pauliina Salminen and
Andres Jaschek creates a link between subtropical and arctic regions located in the border
areas of six countries. Ursula Biemann’s video essay X-Mission explores the logic of
the refugee camp as one of the oldest extra-territorial zones. In their three-screen video
installation Borderlands, Minna Rainio and Mark Roberts explore the once politically
for performances. Not much later – in October 2007 – Fiasko arrived in the states and
performed an original production based on the Kalevala. They were there for one
week.
“While they were in Brainerd, Tuire stayed with Donna Salli. She read some of
Donna’s essays on Finnish American culture, and suggested to Donna that she turn her
writing into a play. The play that came out of it was Rock Farm. Donna sent the play to
Finland to be translated into Finnish, and to be performed.
“The original plan was to have an American theater group go to Finland and present
the play in English, and to also have the Fiasko group do it in Finnish. Due to financial
reasons, however, the plan was changed so that the Finnish group came to the US.”
Donna Salli was born in 1954 in the U.P. of Michigan to parents of full Finnish
descent. She shares the “writing gene” with her sister Doreen, likely passed down from
their great-grandfather Kaarlo Korpela, who was a writer in Finland.
Donna earned a BA in English from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and
an MFA in Poetry from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. A recipient of a
Mentor Series Award in Poetry from the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, she
teaches English and directs the learning assessment program at Central Lakes College
in Brainerd, Minnesota.
Donna’s poems and creative nonfiction essays have appeared in such publications
as Lake Country Journal Magazine, Loonfeather, Lake Superior Magazine, The
Finnish-American Reporter, Hellas, The Hawaii Review, Kansas Quarterly, The Little
Magazine, Primavera, Quarterly West, and the Star Tribune. Her work has been
anthologized in Dust & Fire: Women’s Stories and Art by Women from Bemidji State
University Press, 2001; North Writers II: Our Place in the Woods from University of
Minnesota Press, 1997; Red, White, & a Paler Shade of Blue: Poems on the Finnish-
American Experience from Tamarack Press for FinnFest USA ’96, 1996.
Sources: Based on a Brainerd Dispatch news article, Central
Lakes College press releases, and edited by Gerry Henkel
charged, today remarkably anonymous yet richly metaphoric border between Finland
and Russia. Maria Ylikoski’s video portrait Tuula explores migration and dislocation
through the personal narrative of a Finnish-American woman. Katarina Zdjelar’s video
piece Don’t Do It Wrong investigates how social rituals build and promote a sense of
belonging. Her video There Is No Is highlights the physical aspects of speech through the
difficult vocalization of foreign words. In Adel Abidin’s video Common Vocabularies, a
seven-year-old Iraqi girl learns a vocabulary of war, one that has become commonplace
for Iraqi children today. Jaakko Heikkilä’s panoramic photographs engage with the issues
of nationalism, history, and diaspora in relation to Armenian diaspora.
Almos(t)here is curated by Minna Rainio, the Government of Finland/David and
Nancy Speer visiting professor at the University of Minnesota. She will be teaching and
creating programming in Minneapolis at least through the end of 2010. The opening
reception on January 22 will include remarks by the Consul General of Finland,
Ambassador Ritva Jolkkonen.
Gallery: Katherine E. Nash Gallery, Regis Center of Art, 405 21st Ave. S. Minneapolis
http://nash.umn.edu/events/, 612-624-6518
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JANUARY - FEBRUARY - MARCH • 2010 WINTER NEW WORLD FINN
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