Our Instructors

Lisa was born and raised in East Yorkshire, England. At the age of 19 she moved to Canada with her family and came straight to beautiful Vernon, where she has made her home for the past 18 years.

Lisa started her dance career at the age of 3. Her extensive dance training started at Pamela Gray Dancing Academy, Hull, England, where she was trained and completed exams in Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) Imperial Society of Teacher of Dance (ISTD) British Dance Association (BDAF) and also trained in International Dance Teachers Association (IDTA). After school Lisa was accepted in to the Hull College of Performing Arts where she received her degree in BTEC National Diploma of Dance and Musical Theatre.

Throughout her 35 years of dance, Lisa has been professionally trained and passed exams in Ballet RAD, ISTD, IDTA, Tap, Jazz, Modern, Hip Hop, Lyrical, Contemporary, Musical Theatre, Greek dance, National Dance, AcroDance, Ballroom, Broadway, Fosse, Burlesque and Street, she is also a qualified PBT  instructor (Progressive Ballet Technique), PCT instructor (Progressive Contemporary Technique) qualified AcroFLEX, Aerial instructor, Zumba Instructor, PIYO Instructor (Pilates/Yoga mix) and a BOKWA fitness instructor.

She has won numerous choreography awards and dance awards over her years of teaching.

Over her years of dance, Lisa has had the honor to have been accepted in to some of the largest dance training schools in all of England, where she spent years of her dance career as a York Scholar at the Yorkshire Ballet Scholars, a Junior Associate with the Royal Ballet School and a ballet and contemporary dancer of the Northern Ballet School, where she has been trained by world renowned professional dancers and choreographers including Mark Silver, Yoko Ichino, Ronald Emblem and Jill Caplan. She has been in many Ballet productions at Pamela Gray Dancing Academy including Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, Don Quixote and many more.

Lisa has also Choreographed full main stage productions, including 'The Producers', 'Pirates of Penzance', 'Honk', 3 years running of the 'The Rocky Horror Show',' Fiddler on the Roof', 'Beauty and The Beast', 'Chicago' and 'The Sound of Music', which was accompanied by the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra and directed by Vancouver Director Matthew Bissett. 

She is also trained and certified in Standard First Aid  / AED Level C. 

Lisa opened Diversity Dance in 2013. Starting with just 4 dancers registered, teaching in a small yoga studio and a few classes per week - Now, Diversity is one of the most well known and loved studios in Vernon. It is home to 3000sqft of studio space, 3 large studios, offering a wide range of styles, an incredible teaching team and over 40 classes on the schedule.