BABYBABYBABY

A dance about dances about love.

Interested in the human impulse for connection, BABYBABYBABY (2024) 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, calling 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 malleable agreements and disagreements, in its physical acts and in its overarching theme.

It is a work that is interested in companionship and partnership, exploring the ways we give and receive care.

BABYBABYBABY is the grand gesture I am committing.

LAILA FRANKLIN:

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 is interested in 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.

This show is funded in part by the New England States Touring program of the New England Foundation for the Arts, made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and the six New England state arts agencies.

If you or a guest in your party has accessibility needs for this event, please contact Joe Juknievich at joe@dancecomplex.org or (617) 547-9363.