Jillian Davey

From the mean streets of Wairoa to the bright lights of New York City, then back to the safe harbours of Wellington, this little Pakeha hine has been battling a 24-year identity crisis. Is she a Kiwi? (If so, she makes a poor example with her Maori place-name pronunciation.) Is she a Yank? (If so, why does an American accent make her shudder?) Is she a contemporary dancer, a circus street performer, a lover and administrator of the arts, a slave to the hospitality-is-not-a-career round-a-bout? Yes. And above all, she is classically trained and well read.
She was raised by an English-Lit major mother and an entrepreneurial farmer father on the hard floors of the dance studio and the green grass of the paddocks. She prides herself on mastering the Royal Academy of Dance syllabus by the age of five and Shakespeare by the age of fifteen. She was a hippie, a pirate, a country bumpkin, a savvy city-ite. She’s in remission from an eleven-year bout of wanderlust. (Antibiotics still needed.) She’s always up for a good piss-take and a glass of fine Kiwi humour.
So, wanderlust abated, a few items ticked off life’s to-do list, and having gained some professional and unprofessional experience, what’s next? Director of New Zealand’s first fully independently financial theatre and arts hub? Artistic programmer of Wellington’s finest boutique open access fringe festival? Choreographer of griping and spell-binding contemporary circus fusion? Let’s just start with A job (that is no way linked to the hospitality industry) and a few dance classes. Ka pai.