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Costumes stolen from Seattle Cherry Blossom Festival performers
A family traveled nearly 6,000 miles from Japan to Seattle to perform at the Cherry Blossom Festival, but their trip to the Emerald City hit a sour note after thieves broke into their van and stole their costumes. As they travel home empty-handed, one local relative is trying to help get their items back.
SEATTLE - A family traveled nearly 6,000 miles from Japan to Seattle to perform at the Cherry Blossom Festival. But their trip to the Emerald City hit a sour note after thieves broke into their van and stole their costumes.
As they travel home empty handed, one local relative is trying to help get their items back.
Katarina Dick says her brother and sister-in-law are performers in the "Ryushin Creative Dance Group" and traveled from Japan to dance in Seattle for the first time.
"It’s important for us to keep our language alive and our culture alive, and dance and sing our songs and play the music," Katarina Dick said.
Dressed in their custom, tailor-made kimonos, representing the history of their homeland.
"This stuff is really special and important and irreplaceable," Dick said.
After the performance Sunday evening, Dick says the group packed their kimonos into suitcases and locked them into a van parked near the MoPOP Museum.
They stopped by the Space Needle for a couple hours as tourists, but returned to the van as victims of crime in Seattle.
"Two of the windows were smashed in and they had taken three of their bags," Dick said. "It had their uniforms and costumes and the kimonos that they were wearing during the performance in it."
All of their costumes, worth more than $2,000, are gone. Dick says one of them – a vintage, hand-painted kimono – is irreplaceable.
"That one in particular was worth a lot and you kind of don’t find that anywhere anymore," Dick said.
Dick says the group filed a report with Seattle Police Department, but fear they may never see those pieces of their heritage again.
It was a painful reception to the city Dick calls home.
"I was pretty embarrassed," Dick said. "I’ve gone to visit Japan a lot because my family’s from there and that kind of stuff just doesn’t happen there."
Dick says she’s now asking everyone to keep their eyes open in case the kimonos show up on online markets, hoping to return them to the people and culture where they belong.
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The Source: Information in this story came from original FOX 13 Seattle reporting and interviews.