Monique Meunier is standing quietly in the wings of the New York State Theater, her profile cast in a shade of soft blue as she awaits her entrance cue. From her position, she can catch glimpses of the shimmering set decor, a fantastical landscape abstraction covered in Jackson Pollock–like splashes of gray and indigo that are echoed on her costume’s bodice. She takes a deep breath and pauses. The corps de ballet clears the stage, and the audience rustles with anticipation. Tchaikovsky’s score shifts dramatically, and in one grand jeté, Meunier is suddenly onstage, a powerhouse vision in satin and tulle, her skyward legs lifting her confidently into New York City Ballet history. “I felt like my dreams were unfolding in front of my eyes,” she would recount years later, “as if I was being carried on a journey that I had envisioned over and over in my head.”
Critics would pronounce the principal dancer’s 1999 turn as Odette/Odile in the company’s first ever full-length presentation of the famed Swan Lake ballet as a “wonderful amplitude of shape and flow,” and as a dancer who “knew best how to infuse drama and rapport” into the Swan Queen and her malicious double. To Meunier, Swan Lake was the ultimate opportunity to flex the wide range of talents she’d honed throughout her training. “I’ve always considered myself to be a multifaceted artist,” she explained, “and getting to be both beautifully romantic and deliciously bad in one performance was a dream come true for me.”
The road that led Meunier into Lincoln Center on that momentous evening — one she describes vividly as an awakening to her potential as a dancer — has also informed the path she pursues now that her two-decade performance career is behind her. “The truth is, it felt like a death for me at first,” she recalled. “I had to ask myself what I was supposed to give to now, and teaching became the obvious answer.”