Taylor's outreach company presents three dances from the repertory in reductions for six dancers. Jared Wootan displays some prodigious jumps in his solos in Company B, "Oh Johnny, Oh Johnny, Oh!" and "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy," along with a cool move that looks like the Funky Chicken. The company executes a breakneck closing movement of Esplanade, led by the sprightly Shanti Guirao as the girl in peach.

Runes (1975, restaged for six 1998) is the new piece for me, and it is the reenactment of certain secret rites. It looks both backward to Nijinksy and his Faun in its front-facing angularity, and forward to Taylor's own Promethean Fire in its flying catches and big complicated lifts and carries, which present Vernon Gooden with an opportunity to shine. Costumes by George Tacet drape a peculiar fur ruff across the back of each dancer.

posted: 10:57:09 PM  

The former site of the Capital Children's Museum turns out to provide the most interesting setting so far for Artomatic, D.C.'s nearly-annual festival of local artists. The sprawling complex presents varied walking surfaces at nearly every step (ceramic tile, cracked linoleum, carpet patched with duct tape, a mysterious wooden ramp), and some interesting smells not accounted for by artists' materials. Windows on the dormered fifth floor of the main building offer views of the transitional neighborhood at the end of the H Street corridor, the rail yards associated with Union Station, and the tippy-top of the Capitol Dome.

The works on view include a predictably high number of quotes of images from the prison at Abu Ghraib. More surprisingly, there are several discomfiting darkened rooms—even a tunnel marked with yellow tape. A series of small-scale color photographs by John Yanson of camper trailers, most of them now permanently moored, is charming. My best in show goes to "The Family of Man," ten oversized portrait heads executed in linseed oil and soot on unframed, raw canvas by Amy Marx. The persons depicted come in all ages, genders, and colors.

Easily the most annoying piece is a set of six Big Mouth Billy Basses retrofitted to kvetch about how painful it is to be hooked and hauled out into the suffocating air.

posted: 6:51:13 PM