Jayne Butler

Jayne Butler is a senior at UC Santa Barbara working towards a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance. She grew up just down the coast in Thousand Oaks, CA and has been pursuing dance for as long as she can remember. Jayne has had the honor of training with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York City, the Joffrey Ballet School in Chicago, performing abroad in Germany and Austria, and more! She no longer dreams of being a ballerina in a pretty pink tutu, but instead is passionate about combining dance with other art forms and exploring a career in Dance Film. 

My inspiration for The Showdown comes from a few different things. At the start of this project I saw a series of beautiful film photos that a friend took out in the desert and I was immediately inspired. I realized that in this era of Covid-19 I needed to work around the obstacle of keeping my dancers distanced from each other, and a wild western showdown seemed like an exciting twist on being six feet apart. Also, the cowboy aesthetic in current pop-culture trends has influenced the way I express myself through fashion (yes, college kids do wear cowboy hats un-ironically). I knew that carrying a theme I already enjoy into my dance project would keep my work relevant and fun.