Tessa Cooke graduated from Royal Conservatoire Dance (1985-1991). After her career as a performing dancer she has studied bass, light music department, at the Conservatory of Rotterdam (2000-2003).

As a performing dancer she worked at the Nederlands Dans Theater II and later I. There she danced in choreographies from Jiri Kylian, Hans van Manen, Ohad Naharin and William Forsythe and many tohers. From 2000 she worked as a freelancer in dance and music productions, as bassist for the band DASH, Spica and Orkater, and as a dancer with Meat puppets Patricia van Roessel.

Since 1998 she created several choreographies for Nederlands Dans Theater, Cadance Festival, Holland Dance Festival, the Royal Conservatoire and the Rotterdam Conservatory and various projects.

Since 2004 Tessa Cooke has been a teacher at the Royal Conservatoire.