2020 Davis Cherry Blossom Festival
Online Concert and Activism
About the Festival Postponement
The 2020 Davis Cherry Blossom Festival has been postponed due to health concerns surrounding COVID-19. We are also looking to reschedule the festival for the Fall, where it will be a Tsukimi (mid-autumn moon-viewing festival) instead of a Hanami (spring flower-viewing festival), though only if it is safe to do so. Planning efforts will resume after health advisories are lifted. In the meantime, we are working with public health efforts in order to slow the spread of COVID-19 and help protect at-risk communities.
Despite the setbacks, we are still raising money and awareness for Tsuru for Solidarity. This organization represents a movement born from the personal experiences of survivors of the Japanese American Incarceration during WWII, actively trying to end the detention and mistreatment of migrant communities today. We encourage you to learn more about their mission and consider donating to their cause. Detained populations are especially at of outbreaks of infectious diseases, so with the unfolding events, it is important that we do not forget about the need to end this incarceration. Thank you for your support of our festival, which is now in its fifth year, supporting a mission to build more tolerant and compassionate communities through engagement in diverse public spaces. We believe that festivals (matsuri) play an important part of social life, bringing people together and engendering genuine human interaction as a basis for building positive views and richer understandings of diversity. While we cannot gather in person at this time, we can exercise the same values in our efforts to protect each other. As we practice social distancing, perhaps it will be more apparent the many ways we count on each other as social creatures. When this passes and it is safe to do so, we hope to celebrate with even greater fondness the lives we share together. |
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Learn more about the alternative activities:
Despite the live show cancellation, we will have some videos posted under the "Online Concert" link above. We will feature artists associated with our festival as well as links to greater efforts in the arts to continue to perform and connect with communities during this time. We will be having a crane drive, where you can make and drop off paper cranes at the rescheduled festival to be strung up and be part of Tsuru for Solidarity's protest work. Making one-thousand cranes is said to bring good fortune and the fulfillment of wishes. Tsuru for Solidarity is trying to make 120,000 cranes, symbolic of the number of Japanese Americans who were incarcerated by the government during WWII. Their June 2020 protest in DC was rescheduled due to COVID-19, but we will use the cranes for their rescheduled or similar work. You can learn how to make cranes and where to drop them off through the "crane drive" portal above. You can find some of our gallery artists on a virtual art gallery hosted by Kimchi Kawaii, who has made space available on her webpage to feature artists who have had event cancelations due to COVID-19. You can help support local artists and find lots of local talent on her page, linked above. In support of the charity fundraiser for Tsuru for Solidarity, Sudwerk is releasing Hanami Haze, a seasonal IPL brewed for the festival. A portion of the proceeds from the sales of the beer will be donated to the charity. You can order the beer online and pick it up at Sudwerk's drive-through food and beer pickup at the Dock starting April 2. Order online here or call 530-302-3222. |