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bruary 13,
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Page 3
Thursday • February 1 3, 1997
Russian troupe
dances into td-CH
By Melissa Price
The Battalion
lermans.
in bombing
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id grocery stores
by the end of the
wholesale prices
ed Lingle, exec
i Specialty CoffeeB"t could be a scene straight out
nerica. I of “Days of Our Lives.” just as
le 49 percent ofM.with a typical soap opera, one
coffee drinkers,ims to pay close attention to the
give upthatdailyfftrformances of the Moscow Fes-
■ral Ballet to figure out who is in
■ve with whom and which char-
■ter is going to die. But also like
lap operas, the ballet can be
liite entertaining.
I The Moscow Festival Ballet,
Imposed of top dancers from the
s first atomic twfcgndgiy Bolshoi and Kirov Ballet
lies were held m m p an j eSi w ji[ perform at Rud-
r Olympics. K r Auditorium tonight through
enko was choseB turc } a y pgB 15
CommunistPartH Suzannah Taylor, MSC Opera
a late Yuri Android Performing Arts Society
chair and a senior speech com-
lunications major, said stu
dents and community members
ormertestpilotCl ou i ( } t a k;e advantage of the
ss Kim Novak i$: corn p an y’ s expertise.
Dliver Reed i$55| “x 0 bring the company itself is
ol Lynley is 55. I exciting opportunity for us be-
ftuse it really is the best of the best,”
ftylor said. “There will be few
I liances for students on this cam-
ius to see a company of this caliber
iver again.”
Highs & Uuj Tf» e Moscow Festival Ballet
p Mill perform Giselle Friday night
:)day’s ExpectedIpd Carmen and Paquita Satur-
48°F ni 8 ht -
The ballet was founded by
might’sExpecKpancer Sergei Radchenko in 1989
Ind has been pleasing audiences
lince its inception.
I Taylor said the main difference
petween the Moscow Festival Bal
let and the ballets OPAS has
brought to Texas A&M before is
that the Moscow Festival Ballet is
,. a full-length ballet, whereas the
.xptc e j 0 // 2ers Were excerpts or short, con-
temporaiy pieces.
B Since it began performing, the
ballet has completed two tours of
|urope, including appearances in
ermany, Spain, Italy, France and
the Netherlands.
I Jeffrey Cranor, OPAS director of
ludience education and develop-
lient and a senior journalism ma
jor, said OPAS has strong ties to the
lolshoi Ballet because it pre
miered The Nutcracker at A&M in
Tie ’80s. He said OPAS strives to of-
M o $ c O IT
e s t i v> a I B a l let
Performing Giselle, Carmen
and Paquita at
Rudder Auditorium
Feb. 1 3-15 at 8 p.m.
For tickets call 845-1234
Artistic Director Sergei Radchenko
will speak at 7 p.m. before each
show about the history of Russian
classical ballet. The OPAS Guild-
sponsored Patricia S. Peters
Lagniappe Lectures will be in
292B MSC.
how host Jerry
7. I
38°F
b morrow's
5W
33°F i[
on courtesy ofll
fer a variety of performing arts to
the students and citizens of Bryan-
College Station.
“We try to keep our season as
diverse as possible,” Cranor said.
“It’s all a matter of giving people
what they want. Some of what
people want is what they expec
tant part of it is what they don’t
expect.”
Taylor said although ticket
sales have been steady, she
hopes Valentine’s Day will boost
sales. She said students often say
they do not have enough money
to attend.
“Many times students com
plain about the prices but they
don’t realize how much it would
cost them to see this same per
formance somewhere else,” Tay
lor said. “I would encourage
them to take advantage of the
opportunity now.”
Taylor said the Moscow Festival
Ballet appeals to everyone be
cause the two performances are
very different. She said Giselle is
like a fairy-tale, whereas Carmen
and Paquita are more exotic.
Cranor said some people con
sider ballets to be only for sophis
ticated, upper-class people,, but
OPAS tries to provide something
for everyone.
“We want to educate people
and develop them,” Cranor said.
“I think we’ve grown to think
performing arts are an intellec
tual art form, but they are really
for everybody.”
25, 1997
^5
Members of the Moscow Festival Ballet perform Act II of Giselle.
Memories from the toy box
Aggies remember,
regret toys from
their early years
< By Michael Schaub
The Battalion
L ong before those innocent
childhood toys became fodder
for collectors and hobbyists,
and long before they became
kitschy icons of Generation X, they
had another purpose — fun.
Texas A&M students remember
the little plastic friends who ac
companied their childhood. Caro
line Mire, a sophomore environ
mental design major, definitely
had her favorites.
“I had some ‘My Little Ponies,’
but I wasn’t really into them,” Mire
said. “I did name my cat after one
of them.”
Jeremey Gutierrez, a freshman
civil engineering major, remem
bers some toys he had — for a
while, anyway.
“I had MASK, G.I. Joe, Trans
formers, but they got stolen,”
Gutierrez said. “These older guys
stole them. I don’t know why they’d
want to play with them:”
Toys seemed to be hot proper
ty in some families and caused
more than a few fights among
jealous siblings.
Katharine Marsh, a sophomore
landscape architecture major, is still
battling over her “Dolly Pops.”
“It was a little fashion show
where you’d pop the doll’s clothes
on, and there was this rotating
stage,” Marsh said. “My sister
claimed the Dolly Pops were hers.
Still today she thinks they’re hers.”
For both male and female stu
dents, that curvaceous plastic woman
known as “Barbie” played a memo
rable role, whether it was “Barbie the
Victim” or “Barbie the Avenger.”
“My sister played with Barbies,”
Gutierrez said. “I cut off a Barbie doll’s
leg when I was little with a pocket
knife my parents gave me. My sister
was crying and everything.”
Gutierrez said his punishment
was swift and severe.
“My parents took away the
knife,” he said. “They still won’t give
me the knife.”
Junior English major Jennifer
Presley made Barbie an unlucky
pedestrian in the path of her
beloved Tonka trucks.
“I hate Barbie,” Presley said. “I
hated Barbie then. Barbie and Ton
ka trucks made interesting combi
nations. Barbie and Ken got run
over quite often.”
Other students put Barbie in a
more empowering position.
“I did the Barbie thing,” Mire
said. “One of my friends gave me a
‘Jem and the Holograms' toy, and I
hated that doll. All my Barbies
would gang up on Jem. She was the
bad guy.”
Other students had a more ’90s ap
proach to the voluptuous plastic icon.
Kelly Zayas, a freshman theater
arts major, had none of the 1980s
gender-typing stuff.
“I liked to make Barbies act,” Za
yas said. “Barbie had the car. Ken
was always looking for a ride. She
had a suit — she was a business
woman. Ken never did anything to
my knowledge. I think maybe that
caused some tension between
them, I don’t know.”
But Barbie and Ken are just the
tip of the plastic, made-in-Taiwan
iceberg.
Josh Ethridge, a freshman micro
biology major, had a more do-it-your-
self ethic behind his childhood play.
“My brother and I used to play
‘war’ — we had toy guns,” Ethridge
said. “It was back in the '80s, during
the Cold War. There were the Rus
sians and the Americans, so we
played the whole ‘take over the
world, bully the Communists’ thing.
I was always the Communists, too.”
Varying degrees of violence
played a part in other students' di
versions, too.
“I had a little baby doll named
Beth,” Presley said. “I’d drag her
around by her head, and my
aunts told me they’d steal her and
burn her.”
See Toys, Page 4
E.T., Speak and Spell prove students should hold on to childhood
Editor In Chief
I f anyone is going to
have E.T.’s baby, it’s
me. I’ve been sleep
ing with him for 14 years.
I’m afraid my par
ents didn’t know what a
love affair they started
when they gave me an
E.T. plush toy for Christ
mas in 1982.
While other kids were
busy lugging around
“blankies” and Cabbage
Patch Kids, I was sharing
stories of outer space
travel with my extra-terrestrial friend.
I’m now 21 years old, but I still
sleep with the doll, still carry lunch
boxes to school and still find solace
and stress relief in juggling.
Some of my toys have found
their way into the attic and some are
Rachel Barry
Senior journalism
major
buried in my toy box at
home, but many are here
with me. Some are
stacked on my desk at
work, scattered through
my room at home or car
ried with me every day.
Some people think I’m
too sentimental. Some
people think I’m too im
mature. Others think I’m
just silly and mutter a lit
tle, “Isn’t that cute” under
their breath when they
see me walk by with my
E.T. lunch box.
But it’s not just about being
sentimental or trying to be a bit
goofy sometimes. There is some
thing extremely therapeutic about
playing with toys, no matter how
old you are.
I remember the days when a Lite
Brite could electrify my room, when
Play Doh was the fifth food group
and Sit-and-Spin was a self-pro
pelled wild ride, not a vulgar insult.
A few hours and a box of Legos
could liberate a vision locked in
my imagination.
A toy brings back the sense of
freedom and imagination children
epitomize. Adults should take ad
vantage of a tool that can open
their minds and bring a smile to
their faces.
Some toys were better at frus
trating the left side of my brain than
enriching my creativity. The most
obvious one that comes to mind is
Speak and Spell. My teachers, edi
tors and friends can attest that this
toy was one of the few that had no
positive effect on my life or learning
ability. I still remember the chime
and the computer voice repeatedly
chiding me: “That is incorrect. The
correct spelling is...”
These toys were the accents of
my childhood, the things that
added color and fun to my life. I
may be at the age when people
think it’s time for me to put the toys
away, but I don’t think I’ll be retiring
my E.T. doll too soon. I’m not sure I
could sleep without his alien head
tucked into the crook of my elbow.
Until the day I do decide I need
to pass the toys on to my kids, I’ll
still spend some time every day
playing with a toy.
It’s not about trying to hold
onto childhood, just the ideals that
accompany it — the happiness,
the imagination and a few outer
space adventures.
3374
ON
•oston, City Edik
Buffin, Sports
ters, Opinion Ei# : |
evens, Web Editoi
s, Photo Editor
xeber, Cartoon L |
University in theDi^
; are in 013 ReedB-j
vml.tamu.edu; Inter-1
mentbyThe BattaliL
ed advertising, call *1
8 a.m. to 5 p.m.Miq
dent to pick upasfc'j
:hool year and JSOf*
1-2611.
luring the fall ands
University holidays
ge Station.TX /
ting,Texas A&M Urn
.0^
tXft'
Swing into your job search
at the Career Center.
Register NOW! Next Deadline for
on-campus interviews
is February 18 @ 9:00 a.m. v
Improvisational Comedy
m
Summer J 0 b s
* '"ternships
http://aggienet.tamu.edu/cctr
A*' 0
Placement Orientations:
Thu, Feb. IB @ 4:00 pm 292A MSC
Tue, Feb. 18 @ 4:00 pm 510 Rudder
Wed, Feb. 19 @ 5:00 pm B02 Rudder
^ - v <v*
On-Campus
Interviews
some improv comedy.
(Jell-O not included.)
For more information, contact the
TAMU Career Center
Suite 209 Koldus Building, 845-51B9.
U Feb. 14
10 p.m. at Rudder Theatre
Tickets $4 in advance (msc box Office)
$5 at the door
http://http.tamu.edu:8000/~fslip