Kikora Franklin

Aquila Kikora Franklin is the Director of the Penn State School of Theatre and Professor of Theatre/Dance. An award-winning dance-theatre educator, choreographer, director, and arts leader, Franklin’s career spans more than two decades of creative performance, choreography, teaching, and administration in local, national, and international contexts.

At Penn State, she teaches courses in West African Dance, Hip Hop Theatre, jazz, and Mojah dance. Her artistry and pedagogy have taken her across the globe—performing, choreographing, and teaching in Linz, Austria; Grahamstown, South Africa; Dakar, Senegal; Minas Gerais, Brazil; and throughout China, Europe, and the United States. She has created work for the Atlanta Hawks Dance Team, Grammy Award–winning group Arrested Development, and renowned poet Sonia Sanchez, and she served as a collaborator and choreographer for Dominique Morisseau’s Blood at the Root. Central to her creative research is the development of the Mojah dance technique, a fusion of modern, jazz, West African, and Hip-Hop forms.

A dedicated advocate for community-based arts education, Franklin co-founded and serves as artistic director of Roots of Life, a program launched in 2006 that provides workshops, performances, and service opportunities for youth in Centre County, Pennsylvania, through a longstanding partnership with the State College Area School District. Franklin holds a JD/MPA from Georgia State University’s College of Law and the Andrew Young School of Public Administration.

Aquila Kikora Franklin appointed interim director of School of Theatre