Jess Bates

Jess Holly Bates is a 27 year old talent who has been orbiting the Auckland/Wellington performance scene with intent over the last two years, well-qualified academically (BScMA) and a confident writer and performer, she has been writing poetry since age five.
Jess began sharing her work on the stage in 2011, when she joined the Rising Voices workshops, run by established spoken word poets Jai Macdonald and Grace Taylor.
The Rising Voices 2011 slam whet her appetite for spoken word, and she is resolved to use 2013 to develop both her performative and her written craft. As well as being an avid poet, Jess is a passionate dancer and choreographer, intuitive actress, flute teacher, hospitality-personality, and aerobics junkie!
In 2012 she featured as guest cast of “Shay” in TVNZ’s “Nothing Trivial,” and playing lead roles in Theatre of Love’s “Day After Night” and in Simon Clark’s “Spit for Tat” in Auckland’s Short and Sweet Festival. Her writing work is concerned with the tension between the body and the page, and problematising the form of spoken word in relation to Pakeha identity in New Zealand.