Lisa Macuja-Elizalde
| Lisa Macuja-Elizalde | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Lisa Teresita Pacheco Macuja October 3, 1964 Manila, Philippines |
| Nationality | Filipino |
| Education | Russian Vaganova technique |
| Known for | Ballet |
| Movement | Classical |
Lisa Teresita Pacheco Macuja-Elizalde (born October 3, 1964) 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 Vice-Chairman of the Philippine UNESCO National Commission. She was also the Commissioner of the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women. Macuja-Elizalde 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 (Joly) 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 her 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. Theresa's 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 Layag-Radaic as her mentor, who kept a vigilant eye on her early years as a ballerina, and saw her through five Royal Academy of Dancing (RAD) syllabus examinations in the ten years while she was under her school. At age 11, she danced onstage for the first time in a ballet recital called Twinkle Toes in Tinsel Land that was shown on February 29, 1976 at the Meralco Theater, Pasig City, Philippines. She was an apprentice and young soloist of Dance Theater Philippines (DTP). She received her advanced certificate from the Royal Academy of Dancing, and earned a scholarship to the Vaganova Choreographic Institute in Leningrad. She was the principal dancer of the renowned Kirov Ballet between 1984 and 1986. She returned to Manila in 1986 and became the first artist-in-residence of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) while dancing with Ballet Philippines. In 1988, she became a ballerina of the Philippine Ballet Theater (PBT) and had since remained Philippine-based, performing as principal ballerina in major local productions and as international guest artist in Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, the United States, Cuba, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, and New Zealand. In 1995, she established her very own ballet company, Ballet Manila, envisioned as a ballet company by the dancers, of the dancers and for the dancers, dance training and education rank among the foremost priorities of the group under the watchful eyes of Macuja-Elizalde and ballet master Osias Barroso, who have drilled the company in the highly-rigorous Russian (Vaganova) method of classical ballet.
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