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Notes to Self: Choice Internet and the Tweets of the Week

On Tuesday, @roslynsulcas shared her Times review of “Present/s,” a festival of new works for the Dutch National Ballet. The lineup “made clear [that William] Forsythe’s style and aesthetic dominate a new generation of choreographers, much as Balanchine dominated a previous one,” she wrote. “Isn’t deconstructive wordplay passé?” she asked.

The day before, Sulcas profiled the new artistic director of Nederlands Dans Theater, Paul Lightfoot. On NDT’s announcement in September 2011 that he would succeed Jim Vincent in the role, Lightfoot told Sulcas, “I think the board [of NDT] came to a decision that it would be good to have a choreographer leading the company again.” As Vincent is also a choreographer, I’d say that qualifies as a burn.

@JudithFlanders reviewed NDT’s junior company for the arts desk on Wednesday. Lise Smith reviewed it for Londonist.

Elaine Coorens reviewed NON GRATA’s Force Majeure for Our Urban Times. She confused the Metra with the El but got most of the rest of it right. I was there taking photos and shooting videos with my phone; here’s my interview with NON GRATA’s Al Paldrok for Time Out Chicago.

@PiaCatton was “pleasantly surprised” by anti–Cindy Sherman emails provoked by her Wall Street Journal piece about the artist.

@dancingtimes published Monday an in-depth look at eating disorders in ballet in which dancer health specialist Nick Allen is quoted saying, “Nobody has ever done a proper incidence or prevalence study with dancers and eating disorders.” Can this be?

Former Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre member Dustin Crumbaugh is one dancer featured in Nancy Wozny’s Dance Magazine story on PTJs.

Vin Reed posted on Facebook nice photos of the duet Benjamin Wardell premiered at Monday’s Dance Chance showcase. The piece, danced by Wardell and Matthew McMunn, was inspired by The Velveteen Rabbit and good stuff.

On Tuesday, Chris Ziegler (@zpower) of the Verge wrote an editorial about wireless carriers that’s worth your time.

Architectural Record tweeted its feature package on post-tsunami building projects in Japan.

Comedy highlights from the past week: Megan Amram vs. Christian Finnegan for the Huffington Post; a new installment of the excellence that is Drew Droege as Chloë Sevigny; and an interesting interview with Patricia Lockwood, whose reading at Bar DeVille during the AWP conference I thoroughly enjoyed.

Also funny, kinda: There was a fistfight at Orchestra Hall on March 8, during a Riccardo Muti–conducted performance of Brahms.

Dance videos that came my way included two excerpts from George Céspedes’s Mambo3XXI, clips from rehearsals for Julie Mayo’s Man in the City and the choreographic contribution to an upcoming multidisciplinary take on Shakespeare’s Pericles, and this great short of YAMAN freestyling on the High Line.

@FearNoArtChgo posted video of its February 27 episode of The Dinner Party, with Gustavo Ramírez Sansano, JC Brooks and other good folk.

On the latest episode of #SKYNOVA, Sydney Skybetter and Tim Cynova talk with Dance/USA executive director Amy Fitterer. Here’s my interview with Fitterer for Time Out Chicago last summer.

@pointe_magazine shouted out Mikhail Baryshnikov’s warm-up from the movie Dancers (1987), in which the ballet star performs the role of Albrecht in Giselle. American Ballet Theatre presents its production of Giselle—which got its start as the version built for the film—at the Auditorium Theatre March 22–25. Look for interviews soon at Time Out Chicago Dance with ABT director Kevin McKenzie and star dancer David Hallberg.

Deborah Jowitt reviewed Stephen Petronio’s new Architecture of Loss on Friday for her ArtsJournal blog, DanceBeat. She’s fairly certain it’s “fraught with more stillness and more silence than any of the works he’s made over the last couple of decades.”

@4dancers posted an interview the same day with @adultbeginner, who began taking ballet lessons at age 32 and who’s consistently a warm and engaging presence on the Twitter.

@siobhanfburke and @ChristineSHou collaborated on a piece for Hyperallergic about black dance.

From the Sun-Times: “Chicago’s Department of Aviation blew at least $171,000 on GPS-equipped cell phones and vehicles with tracking devices that either did not work or were never used, the inspector general concluded Thursday.”

Also from the Sun-Times: Historians discovered last week documents thought lost from the life of Richard T. Greener, including “his law license, photos and papers connected to his diplomatic role in Russia and his friendship with President Ulysses S. Grant.” Greener’s Harvard University diploma also survived; in 1870 he became the school’s first black graduate.

From The Guardian: Unemployment among young black men in Britain “has doubled in three years, rising from 28.8% in 2008 to 55.9% in the last three months of 2011.”

From Reuters: Wolf spiders fleeing floods are covering southeast-Australian farmland in webs.

From Gizmodo: “The state of West Virginia has developed an app that will turn people into government informants.”

According to Art Fag City, there’s a banality bubble at the 2012 Armory Show.

According to Alastair Macaulay, Boris Eifman’s Rodin is a crime against humanity. Here’s my interview with Eifman for Time Out Chicago.

According to The Atlantic, we’re underestimating the risk of human extinction.

“This is unacceptable,” tweeted @doylearmbrust on a different subject.

“I’m sure that is not true,” tweeted @GWDanceWriter about a third thing.

“Chicago Tribune lauds NYC’s humiliation of teachers with junk science, wants same for Chicago teachers,” tweeted @DianeRavitch, about the Tribune’s March 3 editorial asking Chicago parents to demand “value-added” ratings of the city’s educators.

“When we dream about jumping, this is what it feels like,” tweeted @pointe_magazine about this photo by Gene Schiavone of the Bolshoi’s Anastasia Stashkevich mid–grand jeté.

“Stop rooting for brands. Root for competition.” —@joshuatopolsky

“Everything happens for a reason that you arbitrarily infer in retrospect.” —@BAMBItheband

“The saddest story was of a child who kept going through shelves of books, looking for someone who reminded him of himself + was discouraged.” —@Regina_Griffin

“A hazy plan to allow private firms to take over public services will be introduced to the City Council in days? What could go wrong?” —@ourmaninchicago

“4ORGY?! I HARDLY 3G!” —@kellydeal

“1. Off-guard 2. Pouty 3. Silly 4. Album Cover – everyone’s photo booth pics” —@DJRotaryRachel

“Las Vegas should be renamed Evil EPCOT.” —@louisvirtel

“Condescension is my first language. You wouldn’t understand it.” —@louisvirtel