Six Degrees Dance- Intra(flux)
- Lilliana Miller
- May 1
- 4 min read
Updated: May 4
Choreography: Cecly Placenti with the dancers
Dancers: Sydney Foley, Shuning Huang, Faustine Lavie, Natalie Long, Mayu Nakaya, Cecly Placenti
Music: Original scores; Andrew Mastalli, Travis Sherwood
Recorded Music: Garth Stevenson
April 3, 2026
Arts on Site
Audiences generally only see one side of choreography on stage– the final product– and rarely the creative process it came from. Cecly Placenti’s Intra(flux) presents a different view, answering the question: what if choreography gave the audience a peek behind the curtain and told the story of its conception?
As a professional dancer and choreographer, I am well-versed in the messiness of the choreographic process on both sides. However, on Friday, April 3rd, at Arts On Site, Six Degrees Dance Company reframes this messiness as the product. Rather than witnessing a fully-formed product of creative research, the audience observes the research behind choreography’s evolution from the ground up. Six dancers in sheer tie-dye tops and loose white flowing pants embody a progressive creative process, reminding viewers that sometimes it’s the journey, not the destination, that’s valued most. In exploring the collective and individual influences shaping a choreography’s conception, Intra(flux) highlights three developmental stages a work can filter through– reflection, isolation, and resonance.
The first section opens with the backstage curtains drawn aside, revealing an exposed-brick backdrop that sets an informal, exploratory tone for reflection to thrive in. The dancers form a triangle as a simple circular hand gesture ripples from one dancer to the next. Each layered repetition develops the sequence as dancers add on new movements. Once the pattern fully conceptualizes, the triangle scatters the dancers into a semi-circle. They observe from the sides, with individuals switching in and out of the center. The dancers initiate this switch by actively observing the center artist before taking their place to try on the movement for themselves, adjusting pieces of the sequence to fit their own approach. This ongoing cycle of reinvention relinquishes sole movement ownership to collective creativity.
Eventually, a choreographer-dancer relationship emerges when one dancer performs a repetitive sequence, and two others join. The first dancer looks from side to side, urgently reiterating sections of the pattern as they follow her unspoken instructions. She then steps away to watch them perform, directing them while selflessly sharing her movement and letting her knowledge disperse onto other bodies.
Transitioning into the second section– isolation– two dancers draw the back curtains and disappear with the ensemble, leaving soloist Sydney Foley under the dimmed spotlights. Foley begins moving with a quality intent on active exploration, rather than performance-driven. She refines a phrase, resetting between nuanced repetitions with fast walks around the space. The other dancers enter, mulling around the stage straight-faced and robotic, intercepting the dancer’s phrasework and reshaping its spatial relationships. Foley continues her process, exhausting herself, blazing new paths through the chaos before finally ending her craftsmanship, dragging herself across the floor.
As she departs, Mayu Nakaya, Faustine Lavie, Natalie Long and Cecly Placenti take the stage for two simultaneous duets. Lavie and Placenti are active participants in these duets alongside Nakaya and Long who are lifeless and unresponsive. Lavie and Placenti play with gesture and facial expressions trying to awaken their statues. Their attempts to engage their partners- waving hands in front of their faces, growing in desperation and longing for their attention to be reciprocated- fails. The scene reflects invisibility in a crowd– being surrounded by people and yet being completely alone.
In the final section, resonance, the back curtains are opened once again, revealing the space and the dancers’ awareness of their environment and each other. This awakening begins as the music dips to silence, with Foley standing in a circle of her peers’ turned backs. She pierces the quiet with a rhythmic pattern of stomps, then pauses to look around, gauging a reaction. When none occurs, she repeats the sequence. Each repetition gains urgency and intensity, leading her to approach each dancer individually. Her growing frustration and earnest expression mimic knocking on a series of closed doors. This movement reiterates the previous section’s message while shifting the underlying question from “do you see me?” to “do you hear me?”.
Finally, a door opens. Long turns, receiving and reciprocating Foley's message. Soon, the others join this rhythmic exchange. Sound, movement, and rhythm reopen lines of communication, becoming currency for connection, collaboration, and collective understanding. Once the audible movement collage fulfills its final trajectory, an atmospheric soundtrack returns the dancers to their initial wave-like formations.
This opening and closing motif anchor the live creative process in the mothering title it is born from. True to its name, Intra(flux) depicts the choreographic process as an ever-changing state of flow that can only reach its full potential through community and collaboration. Knowledge,
energy, and creativity cannot evolve, influence, and grow without somewhere to transfer to outside the artist’s hands. A creative process only finds true success when expectations are dropped. Art cannot make an impact on the outside if choreographers aren’t brave enough to let it interact with the world and take on a life of its own. Through this courage, trust, and collectivism, Intra(flux) succeeds.
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