She is also the founder of Project Ballet Futures (PBF) - an internationally recognized community scholarship program that provides training and performance opportunities for deserving public school students.
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.
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 received her advanced certificate from the Royal Academy of Dancing, and earned a scholarship to the Vaganova Choreographic Institute in Leningrad.
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.
[3][4] In 1982, Macuja was a scholar of the USSR Ministry of Culture when she entered the Vaganova Choreographic Institute, currently known as the Academy of Russian Ballet at Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Lisa trained under former Kirov ballerina Tatiana Alexandrovna Udalenkova who taught her the Russian Vaganova technique.
In July 2012, Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, in a resolution filed on Monday, urged President Benigno Aquino III to confer on prima ballerina Lisa Macuja-Elizalde the title of National Artist for Dance.
She is the embodiment of talent, creativity and imagination, technical proficiency of the highest order, grace, and humanity that makes her worthy of the title of National Artist," Santiago said.