West Side Canvas: A Look Back at the Japan Day Parade by Robert Beck

Japan Day
By Robert Beck

May 11th was on the warm side, but otherwise fine weather for a Japan Day parade. I like to look at the nuts and bolts of things to see how they work, so I went early to the staging area on 79th Street and arrived just as members of the Japanese Folk Dance Institute of New York were getting ready. They would be performing a Flower Hat Dance (Hanagasa Odori) and wore vibrant kimonos and straw conical hats with orange synthetic puff-ball flowers on top.

The dancers gathered on the street a half block from Central Park West, with a large drumming group practicing to one side and the NYPD band on the other. The drummers were eager to get the party rolling and already had a compelling rhythm going. The police didn’t join in, but I think they had a different playlist.

Parades are typically colorful, and this one didn’t disappoint. The group I painted, Hanagasa Kai, blazed in the late Spring sunshine. Other participants wore some of the most sumptuous and beautiful fabric prints I’ve ever seen. The flowered kimonos were gorgeous.

Meanwhile, seven blocks south, the Japan Day street fair was buzzing. It began two hours earlier, and a large crowd was getting pictures taken with a life-size Hello Kitty. Others were swarming booths for tourist information and details about “Live and On-Demand Japanese Video Streaming,” and eating food— lots and lots of food.

Japan Day has more than a little Gotham in it. Parading down CPW along the park is very New York. The Sanitation Department brought a fleet of hefty orange trucks to block vehicular access to the side streets. A gaggle of NYPD motorcycle patrolmen clustered in front of the Natural History Museum, chewing the copfat and keeping an eye on people passing along the sidewalk. Everything was secure.

The parade comprised nearly a hundred individual contingents of celebrities, dignitaries, delegations, performing troops, university clubs, and social organizations. There were representatives from the Japanese Medical Society of America, Nippon Airlines, Park Slope Roll, and the Harlem Japanese Gospel Choir.

The stage cast from Demon Slayer came “all the way from Japan” and rode on a float. The pre-event advertisements showed the actors grasping swords and looking dangerous, but when I saw them moving at a crawl down CPW, they seemed at a loss for what to do until two of them mimed a martial arts fight. That wasn’t the only combat taking place. Throughout the parade, pockets of marchers demonstrated karate moves, and black-clad ninja types swatted each other with poles. There were also teams carrying hefty, portable shrines on their shoulders, graceful dancers in traditional dress, and another Hello Kitty in her own car. It was a parade of contrasts.

For all the distinctions, everybody was having a good time on both sides of the fence. It’s not hard to compare this Big Apple-ized version of Japanese culture with others. I can imagine an American Day Parade in Osaka. That’s the idea. The circumstances and traditions vary, but they bring an old expression to mind: Sore ha onaji de kototteimasu. Same difference.

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See more of Robert Beck’s work and visit his UWS studio by going to www.robertbeck.net. Let him know if you have a connection to an archetypical UWS place or event that would make a good West Side Canvas subject. Thank you!

Note: Before Robert Beck wrote West Side Canvas, his essays and paintings were featured in Weekend Column. Read Robert Beck’s earlier columns here and here.

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