Understanding Exit Wounds
Chapter 6: Jaime Lynn Witts — A mother dancing for change
Jaime Lynn Witts flys through the air with grace and power in ballet class as she prepares for her day of rehearsals. Witts is a versatile dancer that is explosive and exciting to watch.
Witts has danced with Ballet Austin for 14 years. She has played many lead roles within Sarah & Ernest Butler Family Fund Artistic Director Stephen Mills’ choreography. Witts is gearing up for Mills’ new, world-premiere production, Exit Wounds.
I was able to speak with her about the process of creating Exit Wounds.
Gattozzi: What is your experience as a dancer to create a new work versus setting a piece that has already been made like Swan Lake?
Witts: My personal preference is to make something new. It is great to work with people you have worked with before, like Pam Tanowitz or Stephen Mills. That was always one of the most intimidating things when I was a young dancer. I have vivid memories of Stephen grabbing me by the hand and asking me to do things but feeling so nervous. Now, I speak his language a little bit more, and now figuring things out is one of my favorite parts of the process.
Gattozzi: What has the process for Exit Wounds been like for you? Has it been different than other works with Stephen?
Witts: This process is pretty similar to what Stephen has used recently, but I would say, since being with the company for 14 years, his process has definitely evolved a lot. There is a lot of collaboration between the dancers. We have different kinds of assignments. Sometimes we do a writing assignment which included us writing down directions, and this time, Stephen had us add specific ways the direction should be done like languid or sharp to inform us further. I kind of like the freedom to just take the directions and figure out what they mean. We did assignments with letters or cursive or writing as an inspiration to start building things. For Exit Wounds, I would say that Stephen has combined more things like putting people together to join each other’s phrases of dance that we made and then really dissect it down to a step that he likes. Then he will formulate that step into something else. Especially in the section Fields, the women are dancing a lot together, and I think Stephen is great with patterns when watching his work from above. He has made a lot of interesting patterns with the material that we worked out. The movement in the last section (Truth Rescued by Time) has also been very collaborative because it is a huge group. He does not generally work with 21 dancers all in the room at the same time. He has broken us out to work with a few people, and then those people teach movement to others, or we have done things when everyone is in the room and looked at what this idea or theme looks like with everybody because it has to have that kind of grand impact.
Gattozzi: You were one of the few dancers that worked with Stephen on Exit Wounds over a year ago during the brainstorming period. What was that experience like and have the things you worked on then completely changed?
Witts: I would say that one of the things that I have learned is not to get too attached to anything. A lot of the stuff that I worked on with James Fuller was just improv, and Stephen would ask us to recreate a certain part. There are quite a bit of duet things that have been flipped, like two women made the movement, but now a male and female do it. Or two men made the phrase, but now they’re all different pairings. There is a lot of duet material that Oliver Greene-Cramer and James Fuller do that was made by different dancers and different pairings. I would say that, back then, I wasn’t thinking about the production specifically, I just like working with Stephen in that way.
Gattozzi: What is your feeling for performing this piece this week?
Witts: I think this work, in particular, has been really special for me and others who have been with Stephen for a long time. Him sharing his stories and times with us has been really important and special. I think as a mom that has really changed my perspective on some things. Particularly, I come from a long line of strong ladies. I have had a lot of sisters, nieces, and my own daughter so that empowerment part — just talking about the women coming out and talking about the experiences — that is very important to me. I want to raise my daughter in a world in which she feels empowered, and she calls the shots and has control over herself and her body. That is really going to be the conversations that I have with her surrounding this piece, which is personally so important to me. Overall, once the dancers got to see Jordan Moser’s films for Exit Wounds, that really changed a lot for us. The days in the studio can get long and hard. It is hard to retain all of those tiny pieces of information that you have worked on for weeks and be able to pull it out here and there while switching the spacing of dancers. It can get tiring, but seeing what Jordan had done with the film aspect, and knowing what we have been doing in the studio with the dancing, I think that has made the most impact on me on thinking about performing this piece and what the audience is going to take from it.
Gattozzi: Have you had time to think about what the stories mean for you personally?
Witts: I think definitely being involved in the filming for Fields, and even just in the studio, working things out, I have experienced loss with my uncle and grandfather. Those times have been brought up again. Just even being in that situation and thinking about things. So for me, personally, it’s in there and those memories came back a little more than I anticipated emotionally. The end I think — the empowerment part — is hard because for me part of it is that everyone should be able to define their own empowerment. It is not the same for everyone. What I feel comfortable with and empowered doing or wearing or being seen in will not be the same for anyone. And that is probably one of the harder things to show because we are all in unison and we are all moving the same, but Stephen has told us that he does not necessarily want all the shapes to be the same. He wants us to be able to do our thing within the framework. So to me, that is the most challenging to play with — that line of what the shape is and what you personally can do with it or feel about it.
Gattozzi: How have those stories in your life that have come up inspired how you dance within this piece?
Witts: I think that life experience is really helpful in terms of gathering your thoughts and being able to portray something on stage. As a younger dancer, it was more about the physicality of the movement and the music, not so much about me being mentally in place. But now, I feel like I have not only more life experience but also more dance experience, so I feel more comfortable drawing from those stories and thoughts to use that on stage.
Gattozzi: What do you think Exit Wounds can bring to the dance world and the community that sees this work?
Witts: I would hope that other artists and people alike would feel empowered in certain situations that they could choose to do something, to say something, or to stand up
for something. And that, by seeing the show, it can change how they act.
Gattozzi: What do you hope for in the audience when they come to the performance?
Witts: I think the most important thing is to come with an open mind, not have any predetermined ideas about what you are going to see and to be open to allowing what you see make you feel or remember. Hopefully, through these kinds of memories and experiences, people find themselves.
EXIT WOUNDS
World Premiere commissioned by Dr. Beverly Dale
APRIL 6–8 | the Long Center
Choreography by Stephen Mills
Music by Claude Debussy, Graham Reynolds, Bryce Dessner, and Joby Talbot
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This article is written by Matthew Gattozzi (@therealgattozz) who dances as an apprentice for Ballet Austin.
