Still. Moving: Prism 5 and Prism 7 as interpreted by Frankie Lee III
As part of the Still. Moving dance series, choreographer Frankie Lee III presents a new work inspired by South African artist Wim Botha’s sculptures Prism 5 and Prism 7.
Exploring weighty questions of history, status, power, and religion, Botha’s sculptures reference iconic images in European art, including the emotive figurative bronzes of Auguste Rodin. Suspended wings hover above the ground, lifted—and restrained—by thin rectangular supports that seem to both elevate and tether them.
Are these the wings of unseen, silent angels? Or do they belong to something darker—vultures or crows circling history’s remains?
Through movement, Lee and the dancers enter that tension between ascension and gravity, freedom and control. The body becomes the prism—refracting belief, burden, and the fragile space between what rises and what is held down.
About Still. Moving
This performance dance series explores the timeless works of the People’s Collection and loaned works through the lens of movement. Each object becomes a partner in a visual and physical dialogue as dancers interpret form, story, and silence with their bodies. Still. Moving reimagines the gallery as a stage where past and present meet and where the boundaries between objects and experience dissolve.
Support for Still. Moving is provided by Dawn F. Lipson.
Images: Wim Botha, Prism 5 (2013) and Prism 7 (2014), bronze and stainless steel, dimensions variable, Purchased with funds from the Modern and Contemporary Deaccession Fund; Frankie Lee III: Courtesy of the artist