Dressed in full Japanese samurai armor on Saturday, Kurt Weinreich barely moves a step in Sakura Square before he’s stopped by a stranger. And then another stranger. And then another.
“Can we take your photo?”
He always obliges, along with Sage Asakawa, who is dressed in a silky swingy jade-green “furisode,” or traditional kimono. And there are plenty of camera-snapping visitors to the 45th annual Cherry Blossom Festival, which continues on Sunday.
“People don’t usually see these kinds of things at these events,” said Weinrich, who also is trained in Japanese martial arts. “It’s really good to represent the samurai martial arts Japanese culture in that way.”
Weinrich, Asakawa and others are strong supporters of traditional Japanese culture and hope that a redevelopment of the block maintains what they love about this downtown neighborhood. Earlier this week, Sakura Square officials announced that the block would be redeveloped by a team that includes Shigeru Ban, a Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect behind the Aspen Art Museum.
Asakawa, has attended the festival since she was 3 and is now 20, remembers when the festival spilled into the neighboring lot on Lawrence St. before the Solera high-rise apartments were built.
“Building the Solera apartments across the street was a big change because it made it so we couldn’t have a big Obon (Japanese Buddhist custom to honor the spirits of one’s ancestors) celebration out in the street that we did before. It was a little jarring,” Asakawa said. “But as long as Sakura Square can keep the Japanese traditions, there’s no reason to be afraid of change.”
Redevelopment is still in the early stages and the master plan is yet to be completed, said Sakura Square LLC chief executive Gary Yamashita. But keeping Japanese culture intact is a priority.
“Getting Shigeru Ban and Barry Hirschfeld are very important components to bringing Japanese businesses to the square,” Yamashita said. “We want Sakura Square to be the cultural gateway to Denver.”
Kim Garvin, a Westminster resident in a kimono, hopes the new development will bring a kinokuniya, or bookstore, and a good ramen restaurant.
“I hope that whatever they do, they enhance it,” she said.
The annual festival continues to attract a diverse crowd as it focuses heavily on Japanese culture, with dance and martial arts demonstrations, food and merchandise.
Inside the Denver Buddhist Temple, which uses the festival as its annual fundraiser, artist Kimiko Side sits behind a table selling her handmade dolls, cards, decorative boxes. Side, 94, also teaches Japanese craft classes at the facility once a month and donates proceeds to the temple. (Check with the Temple for the class schedule.)
“It is good to show the Japanese culture and not just to Japanese, but Caucasians, blacks and other races,” she said.
Yamashita expects that by the summer of 2020, when interest in Japanese culture will be high because Tokyo is hosting the summer Olympics, the first elements of the redeveloped Sakura Square will be ready. And of course, the festival will go on.
“It brings our community together and has so for many years,” he said. “Sakura Square will be under construction but we will always have the festival.”