As a dance artist, Jane specifically explores movement by emphasizing skeletal initiation and alignment, contact improvisation and improvisational and somatic practice. Her dances involve the accumulation and integration of images, rather than steps, to inspire technical range and virtuosic intention.

As a teacher and scholar, Jane is deeply curious in renovating dance training through the exploration and research on the relationship of self to body. Her research emphasizes understanding of the body as an instrument of expression and that the realization of self is through the continuous study of mind/body interdependence. Challenges with this research lie in the negotiating between boundaries of developing innovative and intentional movement vocabulary, organizing dance making, performing, and engendering movement vitality in every day.

Hawley designed the Movement Fundamentals curriculum and in the fall of 2001, implemented the curriculum into the Luther CollegeTheatre/Dance department in Decorah, Iowa.