top of page
2023
Veils of a Spiraling Demise
Premiered at Good Grief Split Bill at The Mark O'Donnell Theater
Veils of a Spiraling Demise explores ideas of fear, aggression, anxiety, apathy and the false
panacea of distraction as it relates to today’s social climate. Performers, shrouded by thin veils of complacency, separate themselves from the world around them in an attempt at safety and protection. But when they remove those veils, what do they see? And how will they respond?
Choreography: Cecly Placenti with the dancers
Music: Armand Amar, Kevin Keller, Jon Hopkins, Bryce Dessner, Bang On A Can All Stars
Musical Arrangement: Rob Voisey
Dancers: Shanise Dews, Eilish Henderson, Shuning Huang, Cecly Placenti,
2021
Blood and Bone
Premiered at Six Degrees of Separation Film Festival
Blood and Bone is a dance film that navigates the experience of being a woman in this world, both collectively and individually, through the exploration of archetypes and personal experience.
Choreography: Cecly Placenti and Dancers
Music: Scott Buckley
Videography and Editing: Joseph Heitman
Dancers: Shanise Dews, Eilish Henderson, Faustine Lavie, Cecly Placenti
Toward a Metallic state
Premiered at Silent Film Festival 2.0 in Colorado
Toward a Metallic State is a precursor to Blood and Bone, focusing on the same themes and concepts in a more abbreviated form.
Choreography: Cecly Placenti and Dancers
Music: Dave Heumann
Videography and Editing: Joseph Heitman
Dancers: Shanise Dews, Eilish Henderson, Faustine Lavie, Cecly Placenti
2020
Still Moving
Premiered Virtually
"Still Moving" is the visual component of a project examining the effects of quarantine on the dance community. Through movement, the dancers explore various states of being experienced over a long period. The article, which was the first part of the project, can be found in Motion By Degrees.
Dancers: Caitlin Knowles, Joseph Heitman, Kristen Klein, Eilish Henderson, Hannah McClean, Sarah
Lapinsky, Emily Relyea-Spivack, Dianne Skerbec, myself, and Teresa Fellion.Music: Dave Heumann
Editing: Joseph Heitman
Music:
Reverie (Piano Version) ft. Adarsh PV by Lahar
https://soundcloud.com/musicbylahar
Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0
Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/al-reverie
Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/77EPJ_BcT98
Midsommar by Scott Buckley https://soundcloud.com/scottbuckley
Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0
Free Download / Stream: http://bit.ly/al-midsommar
Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/9R9t6FnHYwY
AFFIX 1
Premiered Virtually
Affix is a virtual dance series created by Six Degrees Dance and Inclined Dance Project. This series aims to overcome barriers to time and space, offering artists new ways to connect and create together and bridge the gap between live performance formats and digital programming.
Music: Smells like Content by The Books
Dancers: Eric Gil, Joseph Heitman, Kristen Klein, Chie Mukai, Cecly Placenti, and Heather Robles
Editing: Joseph Heitman
Offshoot
Premiered at Silent Film Festival in Colorado
OffShoot was presented by LuneAseas for a Silent Film Festival in Colorado in August of 2020. The festival supported long-distance creative collaborations between artists of varying genres.
Original music composed and performed by Julianne Mason
Conceptual Artists and Dancers: Cecly Placenti and Joseph Heitman
Editing: Joseph Heitman
2019
Fissure
Premiered at The Mark O'Donnell Theater at The Actors Fund Arts Center
Fissure is about trying to find who you are. As the walls in your brain shatter, one part of your personality remains to dominate the rest.
Choreography: Sean Scantlebury
Music: Armand Amar, Chanting Monks, Se Tew
Dancers: Shanise Dews, Eilish Henderson, Hannah McClean, Cecly Placenti
Veils of a spiraling Demise (2019 Version)
Premiered at Green Space
Veils of a Spiraling Demise explores ideas of fear, aggression, anxiety, apathy and the false
panacea of distraction as it relates to today’s social climate. Performers, shrouded by thin veils of complacency, separate themselves from the world around them in an attempt at safety and protection. But when they remove those veils, what do they see? And how will they respond?
Choreography: Cecly Placenti with the dancers
Music: Armand Amar, Kevin Keller, Jon Hopkins
Text: Written by the dancers
Dancers: Shanise Dews, Eilish Henderson, Sarah Lapinsky, Hanna McClean, Cecly Placenti, Jillian
Sawyer
2018
Balancing Abstract
Premiered at The Mark O'Donnell Theater at The Actors Fund Arts Center
Balancing Abstract manifests into motion the brush strokes and vibrant colors of an oil on
canvas, painted by Michael Placenti. Distilling movements from images, and attaching paint
brushes to body parts, this piece both deconstructs the painting and recreates it in a new form.
Choreography: Cecly Placenti with the dancers
Music: Michael Gordon
Artwork: Michael Placenti
Dancers: Kristen Klein, Chris Makens, Cecly Placenti, Diane Skerbec, Emily Relyea-Spivack,
Rachel Russell
2017
Infinite Reflection
Premiered at The Mark O'Donnell Theater at The Actors Fund Arts Center
Explores what it means to reflect- the return of light waves from a surface, an effect produced by an influence, the production of an image as if by an infinity of mirrors.
Wordless Chorus
Premiered at City Center Studios
A light, humorous movement conversation between two distinctly different personalities.
2016
Premiered at Ailey City Group Theater
In your Light
In your Light is inspired by and based on the poetry of Rumi. Through the creation of a movement alphabet which we then assigned to the letters and phrases of the poems, the dancers express both the written word and the emotions behind those words, in physical form.
Choreography: Cecly Placenti
Music: Ludovico Einaudi; XPURM; The Album Leaf; Alexandra Streliski
Voiceover: Dawn Jenkin
2014
Actions Leave Traces
Premiered at Speyer Hall at University Settlement

Actions Leave Traces is about the mental constraints and obsessive trappings of an addictive relationship. Actions journeys through compulsion, being stuck in a repetitive thought or action pattern, a climax of that obsession, and a resolution, leaving the audience to decide whether or not that obsessive pattern is truly complete.
Choreography: Cecly Placenti in collaboration with the dancers
Music: Enigma; Craig Armstrong
2012
They Dance Alone
Premiered at Speyer Hall at University Settlement
They Dance Alone is inspired by the silent protest of Chilean women during Pinochet's regime. These women, having lost husbands, children, brothers and friends, and fearing for their own safety, protested genocide in their country by dancing the Cueca, the national dance of Chile, outside government buildings with photos of their loved ones pinned inside their clothing.
Choreography: Cecly Placenti in collaboration with the dancers
Music: Sting
2011
Michael In Motion
Premiered at Merce Cunningham Studios
"Michael In Motion is a conversation between artists, between artistic mediums and cultures. Honoring the personal, individual response to any work of art, MIM takes the reactions of 6 dancers to 10 of Mr. Placenti’s paintings and crafts these kinetic responses into a new piece of art symbiotically related to the original paintings."
Choreography: Cecly Placenti in collaboration with the dancers
Music: Jeffrey Izzo, Vitamin String Quartet, Laurie Anderson
Art Work: Michael Placenti
Costumes: Carole Placenti
bottom of page