She'll be right by the time she has to perform the lead role of Swanhilda in the Australian Ballet's Coppelia tonight, just has to wake her body up. Maybe sink a coffee or two. Hopefully have time for a massage and perhaps a quick rest if she's lucky. The class begins, and as the exercises gradually build in tempo and difficulty, layers of clothing are peeled off and tossed beneath the barre, next to cups of water or coffee. Legs are thrown higher, jumps and pirouettes are introduced and the air gradually thickens with sweat.
Faces remain serious, eyes fixed ahead or cast sideways into the mirror, critically.
A young girl from the ballet school presses her nose against the glass pane in the door, watching and learning. Between exercises, music from the men's class next door filters through. Changed out of her leotard and into a skirt and singlet, Bolte has a cup of coffee in the dancer's cafe. She and her partner, Matthew Trent, know their steps and each other well enough already. It's a heavy workload that asks a great deal of her body - especially her feet, which are knobbled with blisters and corns.