We recently introduced you to Gowri Savoor and A River of Light, as they prepared to bring a lantern parade to Cary, for the first time ever. The event was dubbed Under the Silver Moon Lantern Parade.
READ: Lantern parade to make history in Cary
Gowri and her team (including her husband Angelo) have been leading workshops to prepare for the event, that culminated in a parade through downtown on Saturday, January 15th. The parade left Fidelity Plaza at 6:15 pm and marched down Academy St. before ending at the old library site.
“The idea behind it is that we, at A River of Light, teach people how to create these lanterns, which we do during workshops, and then we meet together in celebration. The reception to this idea has been fantastic, but despite the pandemic, people have attended the workshops safely, and so bringing that to Cary is wonderful,” said Gowri.
Denise Dickens from the Town of Cary worked with Gowri to make the lantern parade a reality this year.
“There is such a wonderful spirit of community around this parade including the whole lead-up to the actual parade itself. It’s just a perfect fit for us, because our goal is to keep these spaces in downtown active, and as public displays of light and community like this will pop-up, we encourage people to come down and be a part of it,” said Denise.
Here are a few examples of the lanterns that people created for the historic event, including Gowri’s husband (Angelo) and his Star Wars Millennium Falcon which definitely caught our eye (it was the fastest hunk of junk in the parade):
In a fashion that we have grown accustomed to in Cary, the community came out in full-force to support the event, including the One Tribe musical performance team. Tony Griffin helps lead One Tribe and their traditional rhythms, drum circles and dancers.
“We just love the opportunity to play and introduce our music, we have all kinds of West African drums and we’re excited to be part of this experience tonight,” said Tony.