Lisa Macuja Elizalde

Lisa Teresita Pacheco MacujaElizalde is a Prima Ballerina. In 1984, she became the first Filipina prima ballerina, and first foreign soloist to ever join the Kirov Ballet. In the Philippines, she is the Artistic Director of Ballet Manila and ViceChairman of the Philippine UNESCO National Commission. She was also the Commissioner of the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women. MacujaElizalde is also Directress and faculty member of the Ballet Manila School a training center for ballet professionals who are steeped in the Russian Vaganova method.

Lisa was born at Lourdes Hospital in the City of Manila, Philippines. She is the daughter of Cesar Macuja and Susan Pacheco. Lisa is the second among four siblings. Her elder brother, Julio II was born in 1963. She had a younger brother who was a teenage actor and musical artist named Jerome who was born in 1967, but died in a car accident on September 30, 1984, just three days before his 20th birthday, during her first season at the Kirov Ballet. She is the sister of Gia Macuja Atchison, an actress and musical artist, who was born in 1971, and who is married to musician Robert Atchison. Raised as a Catholic, Lisa attended St. Theresas College in Quezon City, Philippines, where she was a consistent honor student in grade school until she graduated salutatorian in her high school class. At age 8, she started her first ballet class with Felicitas LayagRadaic as her mentor, who kept a vigilant eye on her early years as a ballerina, and saw her through five Royal Academy of Dancing sylla

Source: Wikipedia