Monica began her ballet training aged 4 training once a week in Dublin before moving to Russia at the age of 14 to train with the Perm State Ballet School – one of the World’s premier Ballet Academy’s.

At 16 years of age, Monica was the only non-Russian to be offered a position with the Tchaikovsky Perm State Ballet Company. In 2002 she was promoted to the role of soloist.  She has danced principal roles in all of the major productions including Giselle, Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet, Concerto Barroco and The Nutcracker.

Monica often describes how in Russia she had a steep hill of learning to climb to catch up with the Russian students and compete in as a teenager in the competitive and cut throat environment of a professional Russian company.  The one thing above all that aided her accelerated development in ballet was the constant exposure to new repertory and being pushed continuously through performing in productions.

These influences have shaped the development of her internationally recognised ballet training in Ireland.  The Academy syllabus includes the constant challenges of learning new classical repertoire and company members and understudies are pushed to the limits of their capabilities in the preparations for the main-scale productions in major venues and tours throughout Ireland.

The full-time Academy of Russian Ballet also draws from this technique and experience with time spent in Russia and a curriculum routed in classical repertoire and production of main scale ballet.