Audio By Carbonatix
One of Denver’s oldest cultural-heritage festivals is a moveable feast, even though its very name comes from an early-spring celebration. In Japan, Washington, D.C., and other temperate climes, the Sakura Matsuri, or Cherry Blossom Festival, is timed to coincide with the picturesque flowering of cherry trees, usually in April. In Denver, the trees along Cherry Creek are magnificent in their bloom, but as any soccer parent knows, the weather can’t be counted on to cooperate on any April weekend. So the Denver Buddhist Temple used to schedule its celebration of Japanese culture in May. When the Capitol Hill People’s Fair became such a big affair, the temple moved the festival to June.
Which weekend in June now depends on when the Rockies are playing at Coors Field. The issue is parking, since the festival blocks off Lawrence Street between 19th and 20th for the weekend. (Traffic on a game day just couldn’t take another 15,000 people looking for an open space.)
Having to wait until Major League Baseball announces its season to secure a weekend for a festival that has been going on for nearly three decades makes it hard for organizers to plan. But vendors and visitors return year after year, no matter when the event takes place, and new participants keep showing up. The temple has received requests for information from as far away as Wisconsin and Hawaii, and for the first time this year, a master candy maker who specializes in shaping traditional Japanese creatures will be on hand, coming all the way from Disney’s Epcot Center in Florida.
According to a temple representative, not only does a Hawaiian craft group make the Denver festival a regular stop on its annual summer itinerary, but this year, word has spread through the islands about the quality of the festival’s bazaar, and more visitors will be coming with the crafters just to browse and buy.
Not bad for an event that started as the Wisteria Festival, essentially a church food fair put on by members of the temple. That was long before Sakura Square opened 29 years ago, and cherry blossoms replaced wisteria in celebration of the arrival of the residential/retail complex devoted to all things Nipponese. The food — teriyaki, sushi, noodles, manju and other dishes accompanied by tea and Japanese beer — is still there, served in the temple gym, but an entire galaxy of shopping, entertainment and educational events also awaits festivalgoers.
This year the Cherry Blossom Festival happens as late as possible, on June 30 and July 1, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. both days. The traditional bon odori, or street dance, takes place at 7:30 p.m. Saturday night. The evening break gives visitors and the more than 500 volunteers a chance to change into kimonos and hapi coats, and for lanterns to be strung across Lawrence Street. More than one hundred dancers will be performing old folk dances, and everyone is invited to participate, even those wearing shorts and sandals.
Entertainment has always been a large part of the Cherry Blossom Festival. In addition to performances of Japanese dancing and shakuhachi, or flute, playing, Denver Taiko and One World Taiko will combine their thundering drums for some percussive virtuosity. Four years ago, for the 25th anniversary of Sakura Square, the Colorado Symphony performed at the Cherry Blossom Festival; that year, 30,000 people came to the festival. The temple hopes to bring the orchestra back next year for the thirtieth anniversary.
While the bazaar booths and the stage for performers fill the street, inside the temple is devoted to more serene activities. The chapel will host a lecture on Japanese life and culture as well as flower-arranging exhibits, and the basement is devoted to demonstrations of bonsai, doll making, calligraphy and origami. Also on the program are demonstrations of martial arts, including judo, aikido, keno and karate, as well as a tea ceremony and a dog show featuring Akitas and Shiba Inus.
Amid all the fun, the educational portion of the festival becomes more significant each year, as more and more members of the younger generation of the Japanese-American community marry non-Japanese. Grandparents see the Cherry Blossom Festival as one way to help keep the culture alive for the children, who are growing up with two or maybe three distinctly different backgrounds. One woman, who has worked at the temple for 26 years, is extremely proud that her grandson, who is half-Japanese, discovered traditional doll making at the festival and now helps her craft the exquisite miniatures in a style that dates back to the 1800s .
“That’s wonderful, because in Japan, it’s the men who make these dolls,” she says. “That’s how we can keep it going.”
