“Hi! I’m Monique Lund. I live in Stratford Ontario with my husband and my fifteen year old daughter. We’ve lived here since 2010 and we absolutely love it. I am originally from Prince Edward Island and I got my start dancing there when I was seven years old. I took step dancing in Charlottetown with a teacher named Ruth Ross. Her classes ran in a church basement and you paid one dollar to learn one step. You’d go away into a corner of the church, dance your little heart out until you had the step down pat and then go back, pay another dollar, and learn a new step!! I told that story to my daughter the other day and she nearly fell over. I then landed a role in the Charlottetown Festival Production of Anne of Green Gables as a child of Avonlea. I was in AWE of those older dancers. Brian Harris Lund (Alan Lund’s son) did my hair every day before the show. I was obsessed with the black leather boots, pinafores and petticoats we wore. I think that season was life changing for me and put me on the path towards a career in the performing arts. My first ballet teacher was Julea Boswell. She was an incredible teacher and I developed life long friends at her studio Ballet Etc. When I left PEI at 18 I moved to Montreal where I had coffee and pain au chocolat every morning for breakfast. Then luckily I went to three dance classes in a row. I loved that city and lived there for a year before auditioning for Cats at 19 and I’ve never looked back. I have had a wonderful career. May it continue!!
My jewellery business, Minnie by Monique Lund (thank you Aaron Hastelow for the name and everything else!!) started in November in Hamilton. I was roommates with the lovely Jade Repeta and we picked up scraps of leather and tools and we’d come back to our rental, drink gorgeous beer from Merit Brewing and craft away until all hours. We both became addicted!! She also started a leather business called Leather By Jade. Her stuff is gorgeous. I am so proud of the women in my circle of friends here in Stratford. So many of us have started our own small businesses!!! Sara Jeanne Hosie at Fawn, Robin Calvert and Laura Nason at Wheat and Sea, Heather McGuigan of Heather’s Garden Variety, and Breanna Willis of Stratford Dance Collective, Krista Leis Pilates!!lGo ladies!!!
I have always loved design. I was the one at the design presentation on the first day of rehearsal drooling over the design sketches and miniature mock ups of the set. I am so happy that a found a little niche for myself where I can develop my skills with line, scale, colour, shape and composition. I could do it all day. I DO it all day. I have designed an earring as a tribute to Ruth Bader Ginsburg and I am donating a portion of the proceeds to The Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund ( LEAF) I’m really proud of it!Thanks to everyone who is supporting me in all of my endeavours.
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