The sun’s rays beat down on the ground as the dancers flow forth in a gentle wave and bow to the audience.

The dancers raise their arms and instruments to the sky. Their wooden sticks meet their drums with a rhythmic snap.

Lunging to the sides and spinning around, the dancers jump and kick the air, chanting in unison to a contemporary-styled track.

“Atee-Ya, Sa, Sa, Sa,” beat, beat, beat. “Hai-Ya, Hai-Ya, Sa-Sa-Sa,” the dancers sang along in time to the beat.

The rhythm of the drums tapped into the chorus and sounded into the hearts of the audience.

Costumes in vibrant reds, purples, and yellows returned to a bow under a round of applause before the dancers retreated behind the blooming cherry blossoms.

“There’s a very small window where these trees are in blossom in this way, so it’s a reminder that life is beautiful but also short,” Dean of Humanities Scott Kushigemachi said as he addressed the audience at the 24th Annual Cherry Blossom Festival on Tuesday, April 2.

Lending their name and beauty to the festival each year, the five cherry blossom trees on campus are a lasting legacy of El Camino College’s former vice president of academic affairs, Nadine Ishitani Hata.

Hata arranged for the American Honda Motor Company’s donation of the trees to the college over two decades ago and initiated the first Cherry Blossom Festival on campus.

“[The Cherry Blossom Festival] is based on a Japanese tradition called ‘hanami,’ which is ‘flower-viewing,’ and one of the themes of this annual event is beauty,” Kushigemachi said.

After Hata passed away in 2005, it has become an annual tradition to host the festival in her honor to recognize her lasting contributions to El Camino.

This year’s event was dedicated to Gloria Miranda, the former dean of behavioral and social sciences, who passed away this year, Kushigemachi said.

“Dr. Hata and her husband, Dr. Donald Hata, had a special connection with Dr. Miranda, and so we want to acknowledge that and do this in her honor,” Kushigemachi said.

In memory of Miranda, a new scholarship endowment fund, in addition to the scholarship fund in Hata’s honor, was announced at the event. The fund was started by a recent $10,000 donation by Donald Hata, Social Justice Center Coordinator Monica Delgado said.

This is the second year the Social Justice Center hosted the festival. “This event has been going on for over 24 years, and we are happy to continue the tradition,” Delgado said.

Returning to perform a final routine, 22-year-old Stephanie Ajifu, who is the shibucho, or leader, of the Los Angeles Ryukyukoku Matsuri Daiko branch, introduced the six other performers, who range between the ages of eight and 23.

The group, also known as RMD, takes its performance style from the traditional art of Eisa, which originates from the islands of Okinawa in Japan, where the group’s headquarters formulate the choreography of their routines, Ajifu said.

The group’s taiko instruments include the barrel-shaped “odaiko” drum, which is carried across the body, as well as the smaller, handheld “paranku” and “shimedaiko” drum types.

Differing from traditional Japanese taiko, where routines are performed around a grounded drum set, the Eisa-style performers of RMD emphasize movement by wearing and hitting their drums while dancing and singing, Ajifu said.

After the dances, six students from English professor Rhea Lewitzki’s creative writing and poetry class each recited three haikus they had written around themes such as nature and spring.

One of the students performing haikus, 20-year-old Joseph Martin, a psychology major, expressed his passion for performance and the beauty of the spring season. Martin recited haikus he wrote about luck and the seasons.

The event finished in a sweet twist in the form of homemade vanilla and matcha-flavored ice cream, provided by Kansha Creamery, a local Japanese business. Attendees flocked to taste the cool treats just as bees had buzzed to the cherry blossoms.

Ending seemingly as soon as it started, the festival mirrored and expressed the beauty of the cherry blossoms.

“Part of the beauty of working in a community like El Camino College is that there’s always new students who are experiencing some things here for the first time,” Kushigemachi said. “In the big scheme of things, our students’ time here is short, not unlike the cherry blossoms.”