Eastward bound?
Doo Dah Parade moving to May 1 and possibly East Pasadena
By Carl Kozlowski , Kevin Uhrich 12/10/2009
Pasadena’s wild, weird and wacky Doo Dah Parade has been through some uncharacteristically serious changes in the 32 occasional years it’s been staged in Pasadena.
A few years back, organizers changed the date of the parade from its traditional Sunday before Thanksgiving to mid-January — after the never-on-Sunday Rose Parade, which Doo Dah was created to mock back in 1978.
But perhaps even more dramatic than that are the two changes currently being considered for the parade’s 33rd outing, with the date of the parade changing again, this time to May 1, and organizers thinking of relocating the event from its traditional home in Old Pasadena to East Pasadena, along Colorado Boulevard between Sierra Madre and San Gabriel boulevards.
“We wanted to make changes, and somebody mentioned May Day as we were sitting around. It’s an international day celebrating everything that’s not normally celebrated — workers, even pagan occasions — and that pulls it away from all the other celebrations too, so it’s a stand-alone event,” said Tom Coston of the Light Bringer Project, producers of the parade since 1995.
“We’re surprised at how loved it is, but we also don’t want it to be cookie-cutter; we want to take it back to its grass roots. … The other parade can’t change,” Coston said, referring to the Rose Parade, “but we always can.”
Queen tryouts are Feb. 13 at the American Legion, 179 N. Vinedo Ave., Pasadena. Doors open at 2 p.m. for tryouts beginning sometime after 2:30 p.m. The first 20 queen hopefuls to arrive are admitted free of charge. For more information, call (626) 792-9938.
Asked whether the parade will be staged in East Pasadena, “We haven’t definitely decided to move,” Coston said. “A lot of people have encouraged East Pasadena, but we’re seriously thinking about how we can change it.”
The good thing is, “With Doo Dah, we can take a risk. We operate on a no-failure system. We never let people down and we promise a good party, so they’ll always come.”
For more on the parade, visit pasadenadoodahparade.info.
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