Layla Guest Adams (she/her/hers) is a dancer, choreographer, and educator from Long Beach, Ca. She holds a BFA in Dance from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), an MFA in Dance from Sarah Lawrence College, and a Single Subject Teaching Credential in Dance from Cal State East Bay. Additionally she is a certified Yoga Teacher through White Lotus Yoga Foundation and holds a comprehensive Pilates teacher certification from Body, Arts, and Science International.

Her training began in mostly western forms of dance including jazz, ballet, tap, and ballroom. Through her training at CalArts and as an exchange student at the London Contemporary Dance school, she began to focus on Contemporary techniques as well as Balinese dance and the Classical Indian forms of Kathak and Bharatanatyam. At Sarah Lawrence she dove into dance scholarship, dance criticism, and writing for dance. Currently, Layla is working on research and writing on the topics of dance in popular culture, exploring the lineage of current trends in dance and tracing them to their original, historical dance roots to help 21st century students find context in the forms that interest them, injury prevention through functional anatomy,  and developing efficient dynamic warm ups for dancers. She has been a featured presenter at the California Dance Educators Association annual conference, presenting her research on how Dynamic Warm Ups for Dancers not only prepare students for movement, but provides vital self efficacy skills as well as community development and engagement in the classroom setting. 

As a professional dancer and choreographer, Layla has performed the works of Lucinda Childs, Donna Uchizono, Kerry Nicholls, Deganit Shemy, Stephan Koplowitz, Jennifer Seigle, Meghan McCoy Alchus, and Jennifer Para. Her work has been presented in theatres and festivals in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Long Beach, Ca, Santa Barbara, Ca, and Colchester, Vermont.

She currently directs the dance program at Palos Verdes High School and has been on faculty, served as a guest artist, or artist in residence at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy's College of Performing Arts, Santa Barbara City College, Long Beach City College, New West Charter High School (Los Angeles), Renaissance High School for the Arts (Long Beach), Wilson High School (Long Beach), Jordan High School (Long Beach), Pasadena High School, Brown Ledge Camp (Colchester, Vt) and Long Beach Unified School District's Migrant Education and Welfare-to-Work programs. 

As an accomplished yoga and Pilates teacher, Layla served as a program developer, manager, and content trainer for yoga, Pilates, and dance-based formats for the global fitness brand, Equinox for 10-years. She has been a sought after, freelance yoga and Pilates teacher in both Los Angeles and San Francisco. Her corporate clients have included Benefit Cosmetics, AOL, KPMG, and US Bank.

Layla lives in Los Angeles with her husband Dan, a musician, and their kids, Naomi and Arlo.