Strength in numbers: that’s the idea behind FlySpace, a new consortium of four established dance troupes. Plain old strength marks the inaugural FlySpace Dance Series, which features a pair of companies performing on each of two consecutive weekends. This week, Same Planet Different World Dance Theatre debuts a charged duet by Hubbard Street alum Robyn Mineko Williams: in Unfix, beat-heavy postindustrial music by How to Destroy Angels powers a stylish, rhythmically detailed confrontation between two leggy women in short shorts....

The Chicago Reporter has been doing some good, depressing work on south- and west-side unemployment: “In 2008, 52 percent of people ages 16 to 30 in East Garfield Park, Humboldt Park, North Lawndale and West Garfield Park had not worked during the previous five years or longer.” That’s from a profile of an workforce agency that struggles to place people, many of whom are homeless, mentally ill, and/or have criminal records, in jobs in communities where precious few exist....

Olga Berrin laments the dark-colored root vegetables and scrawny meat she’s forced to work with. In Uzbekistan, she says, the carrots are light yellow and taste better, and the sheep tails are swollen with the rich fat used in many of that country’s dishes—particularly the rice, meat, and vegetable dish known as plov, the defining food of the region. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Since they’ve got what seems to be the only restaurant in the area dedicated to the food of this crucial leg of the historic Silk Road, they could probably get away without baking their own bread or pickling their own watermelon....

I’m going to have a cigarette, even though I shouldn’t, to get the dopamine flowing. I become more articulate. People were pretty weirded out when New Yorker poetry editor Paul Muldoon published a poem by Michael Robbins in 2009; its tone was much more brash than other poems that have appeared in the magazine. Fast-forward a few years, past a class teaching Muldoon (disclosure: I was in it, and it was OK) and a few more big-time publications and the March debut of Robbins’s first book, Alien vs....

Peter Thompson Local filmmaker and Columbia College professor Peter Thompson died one week ago today. He was 68. On Friday a public memorial service will be held at Columbia’s Film Row Cinema (1104 South Wabash Avenue, eighth floor) from 5:30 PM to 8:30 PM. Thompson’s widow, Mary Doughtery, has requested that “in lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Peter Thompson Memorial Scholarship Fund.” On his website Jonathan Rosenbaum has posted a moving tribute to Thompson, which touches on their friendship as well as Thompson’s films....

Like most hip-hop events, the party Mikkey Halsted threw on inauguration day to celebrate the launch of his new Web site was awash in networking—cards were exchanged, demos pressed into hands, phone numbers typed into Blackberries. The rappers and producers in attendance included quite a few with at least modest national profiles (GLC, No I.D., Naledge of Kidz in the Hall, Mic Terror), and together they formed a cross section of Chicago’s diverse hip-hop scene, which makes room for commercially inclined gangsta types, conscious backpackers, and skinny-jeans-wearing so-called hipster-hoppers....

“It’s because I do see sex as sacred and potentially spiritual that I believe in commercializing it and making this potentially holy experience more easily available to all.” —Chester Brown Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Finished with love but unwilling to give up on sex, Brown eventually decides to get some the old fashioned way—by paying for it. As he learns the ins and outs of johndom—how to find “whores” (as he sometimes calls them), when to tip, where to look for reviews online—he also becomes a more and more adamant proponent of legalization....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Bishop Arthur Brazier is an important man. The leader of the Apostolic Church of God in Woodlawn, Brazier was a civil rights activist and organizer in the 1960s and ’70s, a supporter of Harold Washington in the ’80s, and one of the first and most prominent black ministers to endorse—and contribute to—Mayor Daley after the collapse of the Washington coalition in the early ’90s....

Most aldermen are eager to build new schools in their communities, if only to show their constituents that they have some clout at City Hall. But on the northwest side it’s just the opposite: 31st Ward alderman Ray Suarez is exercising his clout to keep a school out of the area. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Traditionally the school board has covered acquisition, demolition, and construction costs for new schools by borrowing money—or issuing bonds—that it repaid over time with revenue from property taxes....

In December the City Council approved a budget that shrank the annual Chicago Jazz Festival from three days to two. The festival had already lost its fourth day in 2009—though the absence of the usual Thursday kickoff concerts was softened by the presence of an unaffiliated jazz show that night in Millennium Park—and the Jazz Institute of Chicago, which programs the event, fought hard to head off a further reduction. In the fall, after the cut was proposed, it sent a letter arguing for a three-day festival to every member of the City Council and to the Mayor’s Office of Special Events, then urged citizens to oppose the move by contacting their aldermen....

FOLK | Kevin Warwick Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » New bands aren’t usually news, but the lineup of a Chicago trio called Chrome Waves makes it an exception: vocalist Stavros Giannopoulos of the Atlas Moth, guitarist Jeff Wilson of Wolvhammer, and drummer and bassist Bob Fouts, formerly of the Gates of Slumber and now with Apostle of Solitude. (Both Fouts and Wilson also used to play in Nachtmystium....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Last night the folks at Doc Films reported that an essential component of one of their 35-millimeter projectors is broken. They hope to have it replaced in the next few days; unfortunately, they have to cancel tonight’s 35-millimeter screening of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s A Time to Live and a Time to Die. (A different Hou film will be screened from DVD; admission is free....

At the end of last week it sounded like a pair of council hearings on the meters scheduled for Monday had been put on hold. Turns out that was only true for one, which was to examine how the deal was forged. Another went on as planned—Leslie Hairston’s demand for a look at whether the private operators knowingly collected money from meters that were mislabeled or not properly functioning. Best of Chicago voting is live now....

Underoath This weekend the Tomorrow Never Knows festival (which kicked off on Wednesday) hits full swing, with an impressive variety of indie rock, pop, R&B, dance music, and comedy at six venues. Tonight a live version of the Low Times music podcast (hosted by Tom Scharpling of the Best Show on WFMU, Daniel Ralston, and Maggie Serota) comes to the Hideout, with guests alleged to include Steve Albini and Richard Marx....

The afterlife intrudes, brilliantly, in Noel Coward’s playful ectoplasmic comedy, in which the deceased wife of a henpecked writer returns via a botched seance. Saucy ghost Elvira means to wreck her former hubbie’s current marriage–or, failing that, remove him to the hereafter. It won’t work: even the second chances provided by second comings aren’t guaranteed. Despite an ending more bitter than sweet, this stylish play is too blithe for revenge, though there are recriminations....

“Your coffee, Hymie.” “Jeremy’s in town?” Lately the mere mention of one of his children was enough to quicken his pulse. It was as if he was returned to the days around childbirth, when the entire world consisted of his immediate family and the sheer physicality and elation of ushering in new life. “When did he get into town?” “Nu?” Hymie said. “I need a balcony?” Best of Chicago voting is live now....

Matteo Garrone follows his crime epic Gomorrah (2008) with a comedy about reality TV, and though it hardly rivals the earlier movie in its social complexity, it still offers the spectacle of a vibrant and vividly realized Neapolitan neighborhood. In keeping with the subject, there’s a central character this time, a bumptious fishmonger (Aniello Arena in a debut performance) who suddenly decides that he wants to appear on Grande Fratello (that’s “Big Brother” to you) and drives family and friends crazy with his delusions of impending fame....

QI’m a 34-year-old straight, single female. I have a fantasy I can’t find much about online, so I figured I’d ask you for advice. And your fantasy is totally realizable—I’ve seen very similar ones realized once or twice—but the only way to do it safely is with a couple of trusted friends hovering nearby. You need someone there who’s making sure that men who take advantage of you in your bent-over-and-blindfolded state have condoms on and don’t attempt to do anything other than what you’ve consented to....

Juice & the Machine, Mass Hysteria, Dirty Digital, Qualo, Que B.I.L.L.A.H., Dude Nem INFO 773-549-0203 or 312-559-1212 Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Juice won that battle, but in the ten years since, he’s had little luck translating his freestyle notoriety into record sales. He’s put out a handful of albums, most recently All Bets Off in 2005, but none has made much of a splash....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Local minimalist rockers Disappears have been transforming Krautrock and garage into cool and cavernous minimalist tunes since 2008. In August they released Era, their first full-length with Noah Leger (Anatomy of Habit, Electric Hawk) behind the kit, and his sturdy, powerful drumming fits the album’s strange, dark, and occasionally creepy sound. Disappears played the Empty Bottle last month to celebrate the release of Era, and we met up with the band before the show to interview them for our ongoing Soundcheck series; we talked about the group’s history, minimalism, and the song that established Disappears’ sound....