Lisa, originally from Greenville, Mississippi, received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance from Arizona State University in 1988. In 1990, she received ASU’s Outstanding Alumna award for “A Tribute to Ethnic Women in the Arts and Sciences.” She has studied many modern dance techniques such as Graham, Horton, Nickolais, Cunningham, and Hawkins. Ms. Chow serves as Desert Dance Theatre’s artistic director, company manager, choreographer, performer and educator, and has toured with the company throughout Arizona, Mexico and neighboring states since 1983.Lisa has choreographed for the company’s repertory and major multi-disc iplinary theme-related works as well as for children’s programs in collaboration with String Sounds (String Quartet). She is the co-founder and co-artistic director of Crossroads Performance Group with her husband Step Raptis, performing interdisciplinary music and dance projects throughout the state of Arizona and regionally since 1989. She was the first Vice-President on the board of the Arizona Dance Arts Alliance, and since 2000 has coordinated the Annual Arizona Contemporary Dance Festival, currently called the Arizona Dance Festival. Lisa was a coach/consultant for the "Galef Institute and Different Ways of Knowing" that provides research-based, field-validated school improvement services and products. She has been nominated for the Arizona Governor Arts Award for Arts in Education in 2004 and 2005. She is one of the founders and Vice President of the Arizona Dance Coalition, a newly formed web-based non-profit organization that supports dance resources throughout Arizona.