Support Laila J. Franklin in Bringing Her Work, BABYBABYBABY, to Philadelphia Fringe Festival

I  have been featured as one of Dance Magazine's 25 to Watch (2024), have  been commissioned by institutions such as Brown University and The  Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and have independently shown work  throughout New England and the Tri-State area since 2022. This summer, I am raising $7,500 to support the premiere and touring of my evening length dance work, BABYBABYBABY, a dance about dances about love. 

In May of 2024, myself and my collaborators shared a 4-night sold-out showing at the Boston Center for the Arts at the conclusion of a 2023/2024 Boston Dancemakers Residency. Inspired  by the overwhelmingly positive community feedback, a personal desire to  deepen the research of this work, and a commitment to expanding the  community and audience for this work and future projects, we are taking  this project on the road and the first stop is a world premiere at the  Philadelphia Fringe Festival.

The Philadelphia Fringe  Festival, presented by Fringe Arts, is a “a city-wide celebration of  innovation and creativity in contemporary performance”. Our performance  will be one of hundreds of independently produced performances taking  place in the city through the month of September. The festival  values of risk, trust, passion, excellence, and care run deeply through  this project and we are excited to share the project with old friends and new audiences from Philadelphia and the surrounding areas.

Fundraising $7,500 will allow us to cover the following expenses:

• Artist fees for a re-staging residency at MAGMA Gloucester in Gloucester, MA
• Travel fees for round trips 9 collaborators from Boston to Philadelphia
• Lodging and meals for 9 collaborators in Philadelphia
• Miscellaneous overhead budget items including insurance, space rentals, administrative fees, and fundraising fees

BABYBABYBABY is a dance about dances about love. It explores the aesthetics that communicate romance, infatuation,  desire, and desperation, through shifting physical states and shapes.  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,  and grief, calling into question the role of sincerity, earnestness, and  truthfulness in performance, and the power of physical states - of  exuberance, or slowness, or tenderness, or aggression - to create  emotional experiences for viewers and performers.

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