Dance of the Sabine Women

For the fourth year in a row, Miami-based Dance Now! returns to the Bass Museum of Art (2100 Collins Ave., Miami Beach). This time, the troupe will interact with a current exhibit through a site-specific dance called “The Ekphrasis Project.” And this year’s inspirational artwork is one of the series’ most evocative. New York video artist Eve Sussman has installed her feature-length film The Rape of the Sabine Women, which unspools over five screens on the second floor of the museum. It’s a reinterpretation of the Roman myth about the founding of the empire, in this case with the characters and settings from the 1960s — think Mad Men suits and midcentury architecture and design. It would be hard to find a better artwork than this for Hannah Baumgarten and Diego Salterini — the founders and choreographers of Dance Now! — to dance around.
The troupe’s dancers will weave their way around the screens in movements and actions that add physical depth to the already-heady story line (according to the ancient tale, the all-male founders of Rome needed some female companionship, so they stole young women from the neighboring Sabines, with tragic consequences).

Sun., June 2, 1:30 & 3:30 p.m., 2013