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We`re still waiting for a class to select this basket project. Surprisingly enough! If it we`re me I would be all over it everyone knows Lego`s are the best. Anyway we need donated lego items to fill the basket and of course the basket to put the items in. So if you can donate an item or a basket for this project please do. Maybe someone knows a friend and/or associate who is connected to legoland. It sure would be nice to have a family pass packed in the basket as well. Please help if you can...

Cirque du Soleil is to conventional lion-tamer circuses what graphic novels like ``The Dark Knight`` and ``Watchmen`` are to ``Archie`` comics: Ostensibly of the same genre, they`re on entirely different planes of sophistication, storytelling and moody spectacle.

What began as the outgrowth of an entertainment style developed 25 years ago by Montreal street performers, Cirque du Soleil is now a billion-dollar company that over the past quarter-century has played to audiences exceeding 90 million all around the globe. This year, Cirque is presenting 19 different productions in three formats: resident shows, including six in Las Vegas; big-top shows, which travel with their own performance venue/tent and set up in larger markets for four to 12 weeks; and arena shows, which play smaller cities, always in five-day stints.

The newest arena show, ``Alegría,`` began to tour in its new form in May, after having been a world-traveling big-top production since 1994. It opened Wednesday night at the Times Union Center in Albany for a five-day, eight-performance run that ends Sunday. ``Alegría`` is the second Cirque show to be performed locally; ``Delirium`` played at the Albany arena in early 2006 as the second stop after its world premiere in Montreal.

Like most Cirque shows, ``Alegría`` -- pronounced al-leh-GREE-ah, which means ``happiness`` or ``jubilation`` in Spanish -- fuses acrobatic skill, music, the spectacle and artistry of dance and an allegorical narrative style that defies easy plot description but definitely has a point of view.

Promotional material calls the show ``an introspection of the struggle for power and the invigorating energy of youth (that) relates the tale of power versus weakness … and age against youth.``Noting that ``Alegría`` was created in 1994, as globalization was becoming a growing issue, the show`s description continues, ``While boundaries fall one after the other, individuals are more and more isolated every day. The world of `Alegría` defies the old order and replaces it with something new and unknown. (Some characters) resist this change and cling to their old-fashioned values. Guided by their outdated ideas, they are trying to preserve their power in a world they no longer understand.``

Whoa. Heavy.

And yet, says Sheryl-Lynne Valensky, the show`s touring artistic director, ``Alegría`` is not overtly political, and it doesn`t take sides.

``The way we represent it on stage is not as a bias or an opinion so much as an observation. It`s what we see,`` say Valensky, a veteran Canadian stage manager who has been with Cirque for four years, moving from stage management of ``Alegría`` into artistic directing.

The set consists of a large dome, columns, balustrades and spiral ramps that descend into a mysterious unknown below, while the costumes range from elaborate Old World frills to brighter, more youthful and contemporary looks. In this space and those outfits, the cast of 55 performers bounce on trampolines, juggle, balance, dance, contort, fly, sing and arc on trapezes to an original score of jazz, pop, tango and klezmer.

A chair is a raised surface used to sit on, commonly for use by one person. Chairs often have the seat raised above floor level, supported by four legs. A chair without a back or arm rests is a stool, or when raised up, a bar stool (adults) or high chair (young children). A chair with arms is an armchair and with folding action and inclining footrest, a recliner. A permanently fixed chair in a train or theater is a seat or airline seat; when riding, it is a saddle and bicycle saddle, and for an automobile, a car seat or infant car seat.