Laila J. Franklin

Laila J. Franklin

Laila J. Franklin: BABYBABYBABY
Friday, August 28, 2026, 7:00pm: Opening Night Performance & After Party featuring Dragons Dance/Erin Yen, Johnny Huy Nguyễn, and Laila J. Franklin presenting BABYBABYBABY from Boston, MA and DJing the dance floor post-show!
Saturday, August 29, 2026, 3:30pm
 

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A dance about dances about love.

Interested in the human impulse for connection, BABYBABYBABY (2024) (West Coast Premiere) taps into feelings of budding romance, when falling in love is silly and fast and sexy and devastating and you are brilliant and stupid and spellbound. With reference points ranging from early aughts romantic comedies and So You Think You Can Dance duets, to archival footage of live performances by Roberta Flack and Nina Simone, to obstacle course TV game shows and clowning, the work stumbles through shades of silliness, irrationality, passion, and grief. It calls into question the role of sincerity, earnestness and truthfulness in performance, and the power of physical states.

BABYBABYBABY seeks to explore how we contend with the precarity of trust, impulsivity, and continuity via flexible agreements and disagreements, in its physical acts and overarching theme. It is a work interested in companionship and partnership, exploring the ways we give and receive care.

BABYBABYBABY is the grand gesture Franklin is committing.

I've been watching Laila's BABYBABYBABY take shape over the past couple of years and am stoked for this work to be making an appearance in the festival. It is a tender, funny, playful and physical ride I look forward to taking with you!
Zaquia Mahler Salinas
Resident Curator, ODC Theater
 

Saturday, August 29 at 10am - Moves for Lovers: Experiments in Partnership and Performance with BABYBABYBABY dancers Sarah Pacheco and Sasha Peterson.
This workshop will explore the ethos and thematic drive of dancing with love in mind (and heart). Working through improvisation and release-based contemporary forms, you’ll dance with, to, and for one another, sharpening performance skills while also deepening our capacity for care.
 

Laila J. Franklin is an independent, multidisciplinary dance artist based in Boston, MA by way of Washington, DC. Featured as one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” (2024), Laila's work addresses meta-commentary, deconstruction, and bits, approaching themes surrounding the human experience with complexity, nuance, curiosity, and humor. Her work has been commissioned by Brown University, Salem State University, and Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and shared through Motion State Arts (RI), The Philadelphia Fringe Festival (PA), Public Space One (IA), Loculus Collective’s Sideways Door Festival (MA), Cotuit Dance Festival (MA), School of Contemporary Dance and Thought (MA), and Movement Research at The Judson Church (NY). Her performance credits include projects with Miguel Gutierrez, Stephanie Miracle, and Melinda Jean Myers. Laila holds an MFA from the University of Iowa, a BFA from The Boston Conservatory, and is a proud alumna of Duke Ellington School of the Arts.

@la.frank

This work was developed with the support of the Boston Center of the Arts, Boston Dance Alliance, New England Foundation for the Arts, Boston Conservatory at Berklee Alumni Programs, and generous donations from patrons.
 

Program Credits
Performers: Guillermo Castro, Laila J. Franklin, Jenna Gross, Andrea Muñiz, Marissa Molinar, Sarah Pacheco, Sasha Peterson and Marcel Santiago Marcelino, with contributions from Alexander Davis and Michael Figueroa

Lighting Design: Anne Dresbach

Rehearsal Direction and Stage Direction: Mira Göksel
Dramaturgy: Kate Gow & Eliza Malecki
Rehearsal Assistance: Abby Fuller & Justine Schmaltz
Project Documentation: Cameron Kincheloe

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Accessibility at ODC

ODC Theater and studios across the ODC Campus are ADA-accessible. Getting to Studio B and Argyle in the ODC Dance Commons involves riding an elevator or climbing one flight of stairs. Our restrooms are gender-neutral and wheelchair accessible. The front row of the ODC Theater is located on the ground floor; all seating beyond the front row requires climbing stairs.  Assisted listening devices are available upon request. Please indicate your access needs during the checkout process. Questions?

Land Acknowledgement

ODC is on the ancestral lands of the Ramaytush People in Yelamu. We pay respects to elders past and present, who are still here and part of our community. We recognize that regenerative land management is not new, but is a continuation of practices from Native cultures and from our own ancestors. It is our responsibility to steward the land with care, as our elders did before us.

Arts Access Tickets

ODC offers a limited number of free and/or lower-cost Art Access tickets to every ODC presented performance. For most performances in B. Way Theater, twenty tickets are allocated to the Arts Access tiers. These additionally subsidized tickets, available on a first-come, first-serve basis, are reserved for those for whom price is a barrier. Please contact boxoffice@odc.dance if you or your organization is interested in underwriting the cost of additional Arts Access tickets.

About the Theater

ODC Theater exists to empower and develop innovative artists. It participates in the creation of new works through commissioning, presenting, mentorship and space access; it develops informed, engaged and committed audiences; and advocates for the performing arts as an essential component to the economic and cultural development of our community. This 170-seat venue is the site of over 150 performances a year involving nearly 1,000 local, regional, national and international artists.

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