​Lisa Gillespie, daughter of an American diplomat, began her dance training during her family's overseas assignment's, studying under Genevieve Lespagnol of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and the Marquis de Cuevas. She attended North Carolina School of the Arts for High School, followed by further training at San Francisco Ballet School, and with Romanian dancer Istvan Ament and Stefan Wenta in Los Angeles. She has performed with Ballet Arizona, Francisco Martinez Dance Theatre, and Raiford Rogers Modern Ballet, with tours in London and New York.

She has appeared in productions with Sacramento Music Circus, Theatre du Chatelet in Paris, and the Lyric Opera in Chicago. She has also performed with opera companies across the U.S. including Los Angeles Opera, Seattle Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Washington National Opera, Santa Fe Opera, and Dallas Opera.

She works closely with Raiford Rogers, assisting in setting his ballets. Notably, she served as assistant to director Gabe Dell for the creation of the ballet Satori for Sergei Polunin and Natalia Osipova, premiering at the London Coliseum and later staged in Prague and Russia.

As an educator, Lisa has taught ballet at Loyola Marymount University, the Colburn School, American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA), Marat Daukayev School of Ballet, Santa Clarita Ballet, Everybody Dance!, and Los Alamitos Ballet Theater. She holds a BA in English Literature, and is a certified yoga instructor.