Laila J. Franklin (b. 1997) is a dance artist and movement researcher from the Washington, DC area. She is currently based in Iowa City, IA, pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in Choreography at the University of Iowa as an Iowa Arts Fellow. Her academic and artistic research is in body histories, and citational practices, and compositional world-building, centered around black performance theory and performance studies. Laila holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Contemporary Dance Performance, with an emphasis in composition, from The Boston Conservatory, where she studied as an annual Anne Cuervo and Philip Ponelli Scholarship student. While attending the Conservatory, Laila performed work by artists such as Aszure Barton, Keith A. Thompson, Mark Morris, and Zoe Scofield. She has worked as a collaborator with Boston-based company Ruckus Dance, founded by Michael Figueroa. She has served as a Shuffle Cohort Teacher and Administrative intern for Cambridge-based organization Midday Movement Series, founded by Marissa Molinar. She is a co-founder and current member of Dance Farm Collective.