She's at the ballet studio at 8am, before most 15 year olds are out of bed in the morning.

'I would like to be principal dancer with the Royal New Zealand Ballet,” says Olivia Moore. Not just the corps de ballet, the support dancers, but principal. This is one talented, focussed and ambitious teen-ster.

And at the other end of the day Olivia will be back at the ballet studio for another four hours while other 15 year olds are chilling, when they have done their homework, been fed and are parked up with the Xbox.

'How many other 15 year olds would show that discipline?” asks her mum Kat.

Six hours of ballet a day, Monday to Friday, three hours Saturday and Sunday. There's not a lot of down time. Not much time for other things.

'I am home-schooled between 10 and three.” She has her NCEA 1 exams next week. And yes, she's on top of it she thinks.

The exams are a means to an end. The New Zealand School of Dance will consider candidates younger than 16 only if they have NCEA 1.

'That was Olivia's greenlight,” says Kat. 'Because she was just 15 when she pulled out of Otumoetai College, and while technically still a Year 10, she skipped a year to do the NCEA 1 exams and audition for School of Dance.”

Audition done, accepted, now Olivia just has the exam results.

All this on the back of winning New Zealand most prestigious senior ballet scholarship, the $5000 Sir John Logan Campbell Major Ballet Award. She beat off 30 contenders.

'It's a bit of surreal experience for Olivia,” says Kat. 'Because it's such an important awards for ballet dancers. And I am very, very, very proud.”

Proud but gracious. 'To be fair, there were three other girls and a boy who were as good as Olivia.

'But she has an amazing performance ability and that set her apart. I must have been about eight and just started competitions, performing on stage, that's when I decided this is what I wanted to do.”

Her mother tried to open her to the world of opportunity. An architect maybe, a plan B. 'She never came back to dance, she never left dance.” No, nothing else came close to ballet.

'I can be myself,” says Olivia. 'I can express myself.”

What sets Olivia apart, apparently, is what she gives from the inside. 'You can have a dance that is beautiful and technical but then you can have the same dance that is driven from the heart and pulls people in,” explains Mum.

A whole body, whole emotion experience perhaps best described by Isodora Duncan, the legendary mother of modern dance. 'The dancer's body is simply the luminous manifestation of the soul.” She could have been talking about a lean and lanky 15-year-old from Matua.

'Weight is just a reality of ballet really,” says a teenager who dances six hours a day and eats salads, brown rice, legumes and doesn't have to worry about the issue. 'No processed crap,” says Mum. Except a propensity for dark chocolate.

'Something just takes over when I get on stage, when I start performing,” says Olivia. 'I just take off into my own wee world and draw my feelings from the music.”

It's the artistry of her dance. Isadora would have liked that too. She believed dance should be art, not just entertainment. She would also have liked the fact that Olivia performed a ‘demi-character', portraying Duncan through a choreographed ballet routine.

'I love all my dance but that was a favourite.”

Down at the ballet studio Olivia herself is a favourite. 'She's an inspiration to all the wee kids. It's quite cute actually,” says Kat. 'They think she is famous already.”

It is inevitable Olivia will head offshore. There are dreams about the Royal Ballet and the Royal Opera House. 'That would be cool.”

For the moment that talent is staying in New Zealand. She wants to be loyal to the training she has received here.

'It's not easy but it's an easier process moving up the rankings here,” says Kat. 'If she went straight to the Royal Ballet there would be 50 women ahead of her.” So next year it's off to Wellington, to the School of Dance. Eight and a half thousand dollars a year in fees, a new pair of $120 ballet slippers each week, living expenses and a heart full of hope.

'A sponsor would be helpful,” says Kat who has two other young ballet hopefuls waiting in the wings.

It would be an investment in a kid who it seems has a skill and technical ability that is quite rare. 'You can smile, look lovely and dance but Olivia is at another level,” says Kat. 'You can't take your eyes off her.”

'Thank you,” says Olivia.

To see Olivia's dances and photos, visit her Instagram account Olivia_moorexx