A life in motion, love, courage and grace.
“I told her how lucky we were and she said, ‘yes, we are very lucky.’”— Dan
Lisa’s life is told here in six chapters — Lisa herself, family, Lisa and Dan, dance, friends, and the last year.
Lisa’s story begins long before the stages, studios and titles that came later. Raised across cultures and places, she grew into a life shaped by movement, curiosity, family, travel and an enduring sense of style and humor.
This first chapter follows Lisa herself — from childhood forward — before the site branches into the family, marriage, dance, friendships and final year that made up the larger life around her.
Family was the constant in Lisa’s life. Born into a Thai-American family and raised between cultures, she remained deeply connected to her parents, her brother and sister, and the generations that followed. After her father died, her mother came to live with Lisa and Dan — a chapter shaped as much by duty and responsibility as by love. Across decades, countries, holidays, weddings, ordinary dinners and difficult moments, Lisa kept coming back to family — with humor, affection, loyalty and an instinct to care for the people she loved.
Lisa and Dan built a life together that crossed countries, careers and more than three decades. They first met as teenagers in ninth grade in Bangkok, both already accustomed to lives lived across cultures. Years later, that shared restlessness and curiosity became part of their marriage.
They lived in Bali, where they started an apparel business; in Bangkok, where Lisa, Dan and her sister Roslyn worked together on Akhassa, the Thai-inspired bath and beauty company; in Georgetown in Washington, D.C.; and eventually in Los Angeles, which they called home for more than twenty years.
Their paths were different but intertwined. Lisa continued her career as a dancer, performer and teacher while Dan pursued a succession of entrepreneurial ventures. Behind the individual careers was a long shared history: two people who had known one another since adolescence and who continued to move through the world together.
When Lisa became ill, Dan became the driving force behind her treatment. He pursued every option he could, coordinated her care, worked closely with her doctors, and remained at the center of an extraordinarily complicated course of treatment. He promised Lisa that he would never stop fighting for her. He never did.
Dance was the through line of Lisa’s life. She began training as a child and went on to study with Thomas and Ilona Russell, Genevieve Damon, San Francisco Ballet, the North Carolina School of the Arts on scholarship, and Stefan Wenta.
Her professional career moved easily between ballet, opera, musical theatre and contemporary performance. With Ballet Arizona, she danced principal and soloist roles in works including Balanchine’s Serenade, The Four Temperaments and Rubies. Her stage career eventually took her far beyond the ballet world, with appearances in major opera productions in Los Angeles, Santa Fe, Seattle, Dallas, Houston, San Diego and Washington, D.C., and as Eliza in The King and I in Paris and Chicago.
The theatre also became something Lisa and Dan built together. They established a production company and became involved in developing musical theatre projects, including helping bring The Little Big Things to the stage. The musical opened in London’s West End in 2023 and went on to receive three Olivier Award nominations, including Best New Musical. This was no longer simply a world in which Lisa performed — it was a world they helped make possible.
Lisa continued to work internationally as well, including on Satori at the London Coliseum, while increasingly devoting herself to teaching. At Loyola Marymount University, the Colburn School, Santa Clarita Ballet Academy, AMDA, Everybody Dance!, Marat Daukayev School of Ballet and elsewhere, she passed on the discipline and artistry that had shaped her own life. At Los Alamitos Ballet Theatre, she became Ballet Mistress, mentor and Board Member.
For Lisa, dance was never only performance. It became a life in the theatre — first as a dancer, then as a collaborator, producer, teacher and mentor.
Lisa had a remarkable way of carrying people with her from one chapter of life into the next. Friends came from childhood, school, dance, work, travel and the many places she and Dan called home. Some friendships stretched across decades and continents; others were newer, but no less genuine. She was funny, curious, generous and wonderfully social — someone who showed up, stayed connected and made people feel part of her world. Her friendships were not separate from the rest of her life. They became part of the family she built around herself.
In August 2025, Lisa was diagnosed with glioblastoma, beginning a final chapter none of us could have imagined. Over the year that followed came treatment, surgeries, rehabilitation, long hospital stays, setbacks and extraordinary uncertainty. Through it all, Lisa was surrounded by Dan, family, friends, caregivers and the many people who loved her and refused to let her face any of it alone.
Illness changed what Lisa could do, but it never became the definition of who she was. There were still flashes of her humor, her unmistakable expressions, moments of recognition and affection, music, family gathered around her, and the determination to get home. After weeks in the hospital, she did.
Those months revealed something that had always been there: Lisa was deeply loved. People crossed countries, rearranged their lives, sat beside her, advocated for her, cared for her body when she could no longer care for herself, held her hand and reminded her again and again that she was not alone.
Lisa died on September 7, 2026, with the people who loved her close by. Her illness lasted just over a year. Her life, and the imprint she left on ours, cannot be measured by it.
My beautiful wife and soulmate of 46 years lost her battle with cancer and passed gently this morning, surrounded by her family and friends.
Lisa was diagnosed exactly a year ago with Grade IV GBM, uMGMT, IDH-WT — the most aggressive form of brain cancer, for which there is no cure. She was given months. She fought for a year, and for six of those months her tumor was in complete remission.
A classical ballet dancer for over 40 years who graced stages from New York, Chicago, London and Paris, and went on to teach, choreograph, and work with some of the world’s greatest dancers, from the Royal Ballet to the Mariinsky, Lisa gave generously of herself, her time and her art, and deeply touched the lives of everyone she worked with, taught, or who was fortunate enough to see her dance.
Over the course of her illness she never once asked “why me.” She made her nurses laugh. She always hammed it up for photos. She kept a paint set on the balcony and painted in the sun between treatments. Every time a scan came back she wanted to know what the next thing was. Two weeks ago, when she could still speak clearly, she asked me not to give up on her, because she still wanted to keep fighting — and she never stopped. Her courage and determination knew no bounds. I will forever be in awe.
And every day, no matter how challenging — the chemo and radiation, the paralysis of her left side, losing her hair — she was filled with gratitude for the life she got to experience and the family and friends she was blessed with.
Ten days ago I brought her home. She sat in the garden. She sat in the kitchen with her family while we made dinner. I told her how lucky we were and she said, “yes, we are very lucky.”
Forty-six years ago I saw a girl across a room and I have thought about her every single day since, without exception. I don’t know how to be in a world that doesn’t have her in it. I only know that I got to spend the best part of my life with her, and for that, I will be forever grateful.
I am the world’s most fortunate man.
Thank you to everyone who came, who wrote, who sat with her. She felt all of it.
Family, friendship, travel, celebrations, and the ordinary moments that made a life.
Los Alamitos Ballet Theatre remembers Lisa as a cherished friend, Ballet Mistress, and Board Member who gave generously of her time, artistry and heart.
As part of LABT’s inaugural Dance Across Cultures tour to Trinidad and Tobago, Lisa helped begin an international journey built on cultural exchange, artistic connection and the transformative power of dance. LABT is carrying that work forward through its upcoming international tour to Thailand.
“Lisa, thank you for believing in us. Thank you for loving our dancers. Thank you for seeing something in LABT and helping us give it wings.”
Enabling Neuro Clinical Oncology Research & Education.
The Lisa Gillespie Encore Initiative carries Lisa’s name forward in support of neuro-oncology research and education.
The purpose of the initiative is to carry Lisa’s experience forward through support for neuro-oncology research and education, while creating a lasting connection between her name and work that may help future patients and families.
2:00 PM
2612 Aberdeen Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90027
Kindly RSVP by Tuesday, September 15 so that we can plan accordingly.
Roslyn Gillespie · 512 586 9367
In traditional Thai culture, white symbolizes purity, liberation and the soul’s transition to its next life.
Please consider donating to LABT in Lisa’s memory to support their upcoming student dance tour in Bangkok.