MOVING WITH PURPOSE

Former professional dancer Lizzie Mapstone has moved with her family to Nouvelle-Aquitaine and now runs yoga retreats in Dordogne and teaches fitness classes in Lot-et-Garonne, she tells Brigitte Nicolas.

- Brigitte Nicolas

We are very much of the mind that the glass is full, grab life and live it, if you want to do something you have got to make it happen,” says Lizzie Mapstone, a former professional dancer who has very much made the life she wanted in France happen with her fiancé Tom Crew.

Since moving to France in September 2017, the couple have bought a house in Lot-et-Garonne, near the Dordogne border and turned the barn into a studio where Lizzie runs popular yoga and fitness classes in between her twice yearly yoga retreats, and Tom is in high demand as a piano, trumpet and singing teacher. They also have a daughter, Betsy, four, and recently welcomed baby Jasper into the world.

RHYTHM IS A DANCER

It has been a demanding few years, but Lizzie is used to hard work, discipline and juggling projects from her years as a dancer. “I graduated with a dance degree from LIPA, the Paul McCartney dance institute in Liverpool and then did the thing of moving to London and auditioning – I danced professionally for about 15 years,” she explains. “Being a dancer, you spend six months here, six months there, you work abroad, you come back,” she continues, “I also did my fitness qualifications when I was young and living in London because it would pay the bills, and if I got a dance job I could get somebody else to cover my classes.”

Later on in her career Lizzie also started working in choreography, a job which got her involved in some exciting events as well as allowing Cupid to get to work: “I met Tom on a gig for an indie rock band called The Wombats. I choreographed for the band and Tom was playing keys for them,” says Lizzie.