Lisa grew up taking lessons in tap, jazz, theatrical, ballet and pointe, studying with Joel Ruminer in Arkansas and Gil McNaughton in Iowa. In her senior year of high school, she was invited to dance with Wren Cook and Friends Dance, where she was introduced and trained in the genres of Contemporary and Modern. Dancing with this company also allowed her the opportunity to travel to local schools and teach in their after school dance programs. Deferring college to dance professionally with Wren was an easy decision and dancing all day every day grew her knowledge exponentially. Lisa then went on to spend several seasons with Carolina Gymnastics teaching ballet technique for their competition team and later on opened her own small homeschool dance company called “Happy Soles”. In 1997, she took a step back to have a beautiful baby girl and in 2003, came back to dance by joining the Bailey Fine Arts Staff. For over a decade, Lisa has also enjoyed being a choreographer and leader for the award winning BFA competition company, with her pieces and dancers bringing home many judges awards and top scores every season. Lisa is ecstatic to be celebrating her 20th year teaching at Bailey Fine Arts and has loved the family she has met there. Lisa also works for Columbia Children’s Theatre where she is heading into her 11th season as the Youth Theatre and Main Stage choreographer. She feels incredibly blessed to get to spend every day teaching and getting to know and invest in so many fabulous children of all ages. Relationships are her absolute favorite part of her job!

Lisa is excited to step into a new role this fall as “Lolly” to her grandson arriving this November!

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