Monique Coleman is on the ice, she’s loving it, and apparently none of us knew this was a dream of hers. Including her.
The High School Musical actress has been at The Art of Performance, an ice skating event, since Day 1. On Thursday, her Day 2 Instagram update summed it up: “DAY 2 and I never want it to end. Having the time of my life @theartofperformance. Living out dreams I didn’t know I had.”
She added a skating emoji and a heart. Nobody posts like that without meaning every word.
For many fans, Coleman is best known as Taylor McKessie, the honor-roll overachiever from the original High School Musical franchise. The trilogy launched in 2006 as a Disney Channel film and became a generational phenomenon. Taylor had a plan for everything. Apparently Coleman’s current plan involves ice blades and some very real feelings about them.
Before this week, skating wasn’t part of her public story at all. Her post-HSM resume looks quite different from ice rinks. She’s been a longtime UNICEF ambassador and has spoken at the United Nations on youth empowerment. She competed on Dancing with the Stars in 2011. She’s also done stage work and television roles. Ice skating, in any form, simply never showed up in the conversation.
And yet here she is, Day 2 deep, calling it a dream she never saw coming.
The Art of Performance is, true to its name, a performance-centered experience built around ice skating. Coleman tagged the organization in her post, and the enthusiasm reads as genuine. She’s not there for a photo op. She’s actually in it.
The “dreams I didn’t know I had” line is the part that lingers. Being surprised into loving something new brings a very specific kind of joy. It reads a little different coming from someone with twenty-plus years in the business. Coleman knows how to perform. Finding this fresh and surprising says something real about what The Art of Performance is pulling off.
The High School Musical cast has gone in very different directions in the years since. Zac Efron moved into big-budget action territory. Vanessa Hudgens went the producer-actress route. Ashley Tisdale stepped back from the spotlight for a stretch. And Monique Coleman is over here discovering ice skating on Day 2 of something genuinely unexpected.
That’s honestly the best possible Day 2 energy.
The event’s full format hasn’t been widely detailed in press coverage yet. Coleman is posting updates, and that might start changing things. The Art of Performance could be getting some new attention soon.
Day 3 is presumably on the way. She already said she never wants it to end.
