Behind the Scenes: Picnic Day Parade

This past Saturday, April 22nd, Bakuhatsu had a performance at the 103rd Annual UC Davis Picnic Day just like we do every year for many years now. However, this year the club made Bakuhatsu and collegiate taiko history by building a parade float from scratch and then pushing and pulling that float for almost two miles while members rotated between playing on and off the float. We also incorporated painted lanterns and paper cranes that were made by community members at the 2nd Annual Davis Cherry Blossom Festival two weeks prior.

Bakuhatsu members pushing and pulling the float while others drummed on it or danced around it.

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However, all of the effort during Picnic Day cannot rival the effort that was put into the float ahead of time. Our members Greg Wada and Issa Takada put hours of work into constructing, painting, moving, repairing, and decorating the float for a month before it was unveiled to the world, so here's the behind-the-scenes story: 

The morning of Picnic Day, I awoke to the sound of engines. Some DeLoreans had parked just across from our vermilion (aka heirloom tomato) yatai float that we had built for the Picnic Day Parade. I looked over to see Issa awake, too, bundled in his ski trip clothes. We had spent the night there, atop the float. Our U-Haul reservation had fallen through, so we mustered as many Bakuhatsu members as we could and pushed the float two miles from my house the night before to make the 8:00 am check-in. Under the streetlights and stars, we installed the final decorations to be ready by morning. In the dead of night, setting down to sleep out the last few hours, the lanterns and paper cranes rustled so peacefully. The place felt sacred.
 
It had been a long journey so far, but the 1.7 miles of parade that awaited us were what we had been working for. While many students spend spring break going to fun places or visiting friends and family, we had spent it making the float. Hundreds of pounds of dimensional lumber, the club’s entire varnish reserve, 3 gallons of heirloom tomato paint, steel rod axles, roofing tar to line the wooden wheels, and an assortment of lag screws came together outside Sudwerk Brewery to birth our float. There were full-days under the sun and breeze. There were rainstorms where we couldn’t use the power equipment and were ratcheting screws in by hand. We broke our dime-toss table trying to support the wheels for tarring and had to make rock piles instead. There was creation and setback, but it was good, fun, hard work.
 
We built the float in time to debut it at the Davis Cherry Blossom Festival, an event which Bakuhatsu co-hosts with Sudwerk Brewery. During the festival, we had craft booths set up where people could make origami cranes or paint paper lanterns for our float, and we put every one of them on the float for Picnic Day. So, in that way, the community helped build the float and send us off.
 
While Sudwerk Brewery has been so generous with our club for Cherry Blossom and for allowing us to use their space for construction, the actual landlord told them they had to clear out the construction site the week before Picnic Day. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, though, as the rushed exodus from Sudwerk to my house revealed flaws in the wheel stabilizing mechanisms with enough time to fix them. Also, trying to relocate the float’s roof via the top of my car resulted in the PVC joints coming apart. Though the roof may have exploded on the open road that night, only one critical piece was destroyed, and we were able to replace it and tape the joints together for the actual Parade. In this manner, it is as if the float was teaching us that blessing and curse are two sides of the same coin.
 
Soon after the DeLoreans arrived, more floats began showing up, each pulled by some motorized vehicle. Even though the atmosphere was highly welcoming and collaborative, there was a “game-day” feeling in my stomach, standing atop a wooden float watching the trucks roll in. But as Bakuhatusu members arrived in a red wave around the float, the strength of our engine was apparent, too. My good friend KB, who made possible our work at Sudwerk, joined us as her company’s mascot Barley the Bear, outfitted with the purple happi and the old gong.
 
The actual parade for me is a jumble of snapshots and emotions. It was a lot of fun and a bit surreal. We had to deadlift one end of the float to make turns, so there was a lot of communication and energy directed towards navigating the route. About half-way, before hitting downtown, we seemed to be losing power. We were playing endless-tage (parts of Utage on loop), but we called an audible and took it down to a quiet shime duet to build up some strength and launched back into Utage for downtown and the second half. There were times that I was a bit worried. Ropes came undone. We gave up on roundabouts and just went over. We hit an overhanging tree. But it all worked out. Seeing the excitement and surprise from the audience was rewarding, as was seeing the team work so hard together. By the time we crossed the finish line, I had forgotten about the judging portion of the parade, so it was quite a shock to be handed the Parade Marshall’s Choice award. So, yeah, I might have teared up a bit when we circled up at the end. I’m really proud of Bakuhatsu."
                                          — Greg Wada

Issa Takada (left) and Greg Wada (right) after receiving the Parade Marshall's Choice certificate and trophy.

Bakuhatsu is so honored to have such inspirational members who make their dreams a reality and push our whole club to work harder and achieve the seemingly impossible. It's the attitude we take with all of our endeavors and is one that has been instilled in us through our strong bonds as a club for many years. You can see exactly what we mean by coming to Kizuna 絆 Bakuhatsu Taiko Dan's 6th Annual Showcase this coming Saturday, April 29th at 4 p.m. at the Davis Veteran's Memorial Center Theatre. 

A photo collage provided by Greg Wada (@wadawonderfulworld) of float building (top), the parade (bottom left), and the Parade Marshall's Choice Award (bottom right).

Written by Shai Nielson, BTD Historian 2016-2017