Welcome from the 2023 Festival Co-Chairs
Welcome everyone, and thank you for attending the 56th Annual Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival. It’s exciting to welcome everyone back again to our Festival for another year in person. Being able to bring together not only our community but all those who want to celebrate Japanese American and Japanese Culture with us is such […]
2022 Raffle Winners Announced
Congratulations to all of our raffle prize winners! Thank you so much to everyone for supporting our festival by purchasing tickets and thank you also to our wonderful sponsors and donors
Remembering Shogo Yamada
The NCCBF Executive Committee writes this tribute for Shogo Yamada, our dear friend and supporter for many years, who passed away last March. Many festivalgoers remember Yamada-san for leading his spirited Japanese folk music group, YamaSho Kai, or dancing along to Awa Odori with San Francisco Awakko-Ren at the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival and […]
What Kizuna Means to Me ft. Kazanami Yosakoi Dance Showcase
The 54th annual Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival’s theme is Kizuna – Strength through Bonds of Community and Friendship. The 2021 Festival gave us the opportunity to celebrate the kizuna spirit with our Festival partners, cultural performers and exhibitors, nonprofit organizations, and community and corporate supporters. In lieu of the Grand Parade, the Festival’s Executive […]
Kazanami: A Blossoming Community of Yosakoi Dance
I’m Daniel Rolandi, Director of Ito Yosakoi, which is based in San Francisco Japantown, and I’m happy to write this blog post to share Kazanami’s history with the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival and our excitement to participate in the 2021 Festival. Since 2017, Ito Yosakoi (糸よã•ã“ã„) has performed yosakoi, an energetic dance style from […]
Reflections of Tohoku Preview
We premiered Reflections of Tohoku as our 2021 Festival’s short documentary film. The 54th annual Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival will commemorate the 10 year anniversary of the Tohoku Earthquake with our 2021 Festival theme, Kizuna – Strength through Bonds of Community and Friendship. We embarked on a socially distanced documentary project over the past […]
Sapporo Beer Garden Committee
April 7th is National Beer Day, and we are pleased to share reflections and supportive messages from key members of our Sapporo Beer Garden Committee! Sapporo Beer Garden serves thousands of visitors every year, operating multiple tents in the Food Bazaar and near the Japantown Peace Plaza and Webster Street Stage. We are grateful for […]
Meet the Calligraphy Artist: Kawahatsu Sensei
Over the past several months, designer Selena Joe and the Festival’s poster committee explored different designs to paint a beautiful art piece, and an important element was the kanji. Selena experimented with freedrawing the kanji and utilizing Japanese fonts, but we collectively wanted to capture the full essence of a professionally written kanji. Recalling our […]
Meet the Artist: Selena Joe, 2021 Poster Designer
Selena Joe designed the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival poster and banner with the 2021 theme, 絆 Kizuna – Strength through Bonds of Community and Friendship. She recently graduated from Ringling College with a B.F.A. in Motion Design, and we are grateful for Greg Viloria, 2021 Festival Co-Chair, for introducing this artist to our team. […]
Support Give & Gift Fundraiser in Japantown
The Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival presents the Give & Gift fundraiser, an opportunity to shop in Japantown while giving back to small businesses and supporting our Festival at the same time. Pick up gift certificates for select retailers at discounted prices, so you can stretch your dollar further while purchasing gifts for your family, […]