Mandy Meisner — politics and pliés

Anoka County Commissioner Mandy Meisner has deft political skills, but check out her dance moves. 

The Fridley resident has mastered pliés, arabesques and tendus as an adult learner at Ballet Co.Laboratory in St. Paul, executing a perfect pas de deux in which politics and dancing strengthen and balance each other.

“It expands my world and ultimately makes me a better politician,” says Meisner. 

She was recently re-elected to her District 7 seat, earning 14,390 votes against challenger Taher Herzallah’s 4,713. Reached by phone after a long campaign, Meisner seemed relieved to have the process behind her and excited to return to the barre.

“I haven’t been dancing lately because of the election, but will go back to it now. Learning ballet as an adult is an opportunity for personal growth and a way to find joy. It’s very grounding when you’re in a demanding profession.”

Dance began for Meisner when she was a young stay-at-home mom who wanted to get out of the house and get some exercise. She had studied classical music, but was always interested in dance. 

“In Minnesota culture,” she noted, “there are opportunities to play on a softball league almost all your life, but with art we often stop doing it.” She found an outlet at a Fridley community studio called N’Motion Dance Center, where she danced recreationally for 15 years. 

“I’m no spring chicken” — she will be 50 in February — “but I was so thrilled to learn how to dance and experience a new art form. It was such a joy.” 

When N’Motion closed in 2022, a colleague suggested Ballet Co.Laboratory in St. Paul. “They only do ballet, but it’s my favorite,” Meisner said. “My instructor there, Genevieve Waterbury, really cares about teaching adults.”

Each Saturday, she trains for an impressive five-plus hours. This includes rehearsing with a performance ensemble of 12 adult women — a program that grew out of adult learners seeking opportunities to perform. Meisner, who wanted a personal challenge, auditioned and was accepted. 

“When people think of ballet, they often think of young kids,” said Rachel Koep, the company’s managing director. “But last year we served more than 500 adults. Adult ballet is definitely booming. There are lots of places to take classes, but not many places where adult ballet nonprofessionals can perform outside of ‘The Nutcracker’.” 

Being part of the performing ensemble has given Meisner a chance to build community with women who have different lives, skill sets and backgrounds.

“For me,” she said, “it’s going to the next level of personal challenge. It’s a physical expression of the classical music that I studied.”

Background, culture and community 

Meisner was adopted from Korea when she was 13 months old and grew up in the northern Minnesota city of Cloquet. She remembers the challenge of looking different from everyone else in the room. 

It’s an awareness that remained as she became Minnesota’s first Asian American to become a county commissioner and the first woman in her seat. She’s been involved in politics for almost six years. Her current third term will add four more years.

“I was the outlier in my family in a community with mostly sports activities. My sister played softball, but I was the only one in my family who could read music. I remember watching ‘Sesame Street’ and there was a flute player on. I became interested and starting taking flute in fourth grade.”

That passion led her to win an audition to study flute and music at the Perpich Center for Arts Education in Golden Valley.

“The experience solidified me on the benefits on what art is and what it can be, not just the performing arts, but literature and other forms. That is the beauty of art. It’s a space where it can all come together.”

Arts in Anoka County

Meisner has applied that philosophy to her work. 

“Art is a great economic and cultural driver,” she says. “When people go out to arts events — they eat at restaurants, get gas. That intersection with art provides a great lens to apply to a whole bunch of things.

“I’m a bit of an oddball, in that most other commissioners have a background in city politics or other areas. But I wouldn’t want everyone to be like me, because having diverse representatives is where the magic happens. It makes Anoka County stronger.” 

Her friend Jessica Theins is development director of Lyric Arts in downtown Anoka, which has served the area for 30 years. As the only full-time theater in the northern suburbs, it provides a good barometer of the area’s cultural health. 

Theins says, “Anoka is doing well. And if you ask anyone if the arts are important, you’d probably get a positive response. People like Mandy and her counterparts create visibility for organizations like ours and are vocal about the need for support.” 

That need is acute, said Koep of Ballet Co.Laboratory: “People say that the arts have rebounded since COVID. But the correct narrative is that we’ve lost a lot of corporate support. The cost of everything has gone up, but we can’t raise ticket prices because we don’t want to price out the diversity of the people we want to attract.” 

Meisner hopes to see the creation of an Anoka Arts Council that would serve citizens countywide. “Columbia Heights, Fridley and Anoka are strong in the arts with multiple projects in the works,” she said. “We have this wealth, but there should be better partnerships, including financial support, between public and private entities.

“Art is the absolute perfect platform for expressing our culture and it has been pivotal in moving political change. Dance is a great medium to talk about your stories or an artist can capture an image of ‘weird political times.’ This is a critical intersection. These are powerful messages.”