ONE WAY OF measuring an artist's stature is by his or her ability to continue to surprise us. Not many can keep up with themselves well beyond middle age. Among choreographers alive today, Paul Taylor stands pretty much alone up there with Merce Cunningham. Taylor is by far the more accessible of the two, and he keeps turning out new work at the rate of at least one a year. This time around it's Klezmerbluegrass, which should be at the very least an intriguing mix of two types of folk music. Taylor's fascination with popular music and culture goes way back, but it seems to have come more to the forefront in the past decade or so. Three such inspired works, Company B, Funny Papers, and Black Tuesday, pop up in this 10-day, three-program run. All three are wonderfully entertaining – yet all contain the dark undercurrent that has appeared in Taylor's more recent works. A Taylor piece is almost always a multilayered affair; that dark undercurrent may be topped by hilarious incidents, or biting sarcasm may be clothed in a veneer of affability. This is why we keep going back to see the Paul Taylor Dance Company: to try and figure out whether we really did see what we thought we saw. See Web site for complete program information. Program A runs Sat/2, 8 p.m.; Sun/3, 7 p.m.; April 8, 8 p.m. Program B runs April 6 and 9, 8 p.m. Program C runs April 7, 8 p.m.; April 10, 2 p.m. Family matinee one: Sun/3, 2 p.m.; family matinee two: April 9, 2 p.m., 700 Howard, S.F. $35-$52. (415) 392-2545, www.performances.org. (Rita Felciano)