Jade Keomanivong gripped her paddle tight as the boat drifted up to the starting line at the Colorado Dragon Boat Festival on a hot day in the summer of 2019. Her field of view was obscured by her teammate’s muscled back in the seat in front of her. All she could hear was the hushed anticipation of the crowd and the droplets of water falling from 20 paddles.
“All of the sudden they’re calling paddlers ready and your blades are in the water,” Keomanivong remembered. “It’s that little moment when you’re like, “okay, breathe in, breathe out, time to go.”
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In 2019, Keomanivong was 17 years old, the youngest member of the CU Denver team. Five years later, she is the co-captain, and de facto co-coach, of that same team.
This weekend, the team will join more than 45 other dragon boat crews on Sloan’s Lake in Denver for the 2024 Colorado Dragon Boat Festival. Last year, it brought in 200,000 people from all walks of life, and organizers hope for more of the same.
“I saw a two-year-old baby at the festival, and, the same day, I met a blind gentleman who is 79 and has been coming to the event ever since the inception,” Colorado Dragon Boat executive director Sara Moore told KUNC.
Though the races are an integral part of the weekend, the festival’s mission is much broader: to celebrate Colorado’s Asian/Pacific American cultures. The park will host a pop-up Asian market, food vendors and all-weekend performances from local Asian/Pacific American bands and musicians. The celebration runs from dawn to dusk on Saturday and Sunday.
When three Denverites founded the festival 24 years ago, their aspiration was to create an event that would celebrate Asian/Pacific American people's shared identity, while also showcasing their diverse cultures. Dragon Boat racing, a 2,000-year-old practice that’s origin story involves a banished warrior-poet in ancient China, seemed like a natural choice. It was flashy and fun married with competition and athleticism, two things that Coloradans tend to rally behind.
“Dragon boating has just been a fun way to hook everybody,” Moore joked. “They’ll come for the dragon boats and they’ll stay for the performances, marketplace, food and really just be immersed in culture and art.”
Keomanivong, whose family moved to Denver from Chicago when she was seven, remembers coming to the festival as a kid. It was one of the only local gatherings that featured other Asian Americans. In an overwhelmingly white city in an overwhelmingly white state, she often felt like an outsider. But the Dragon Boat Festival felt like home.
“Not a lot of people looked like me,” Keomanivong explained. “I was trying to find a community where I belonged.”
Later, when she started paddling with the CU Denver team, Keomanivong found a level of comradery that she had never had before. Now, as a co-captain, she tries to foster that same sense of community for her team.
Last week, the crew trickled onto the boat dock at Sloan's Lake for an evening practice. Keomanivong handed out jerseys and encouraged everyone to put on sunscreen. Her mentees lovingly teased her as she posed for photos with the team's social media guru. There was a rambunctious, nervous energy among the 20 paddlers as they donned life vests and pushed off from the dock.
The team rounded the corner to exit the artificial bay on the lake and Keomanivong called for them to “press five.” The boat lurched forward as the racers put their backs into five heaving strokes. She sat in the front facing the paddlers, and, as they made their way across the lake, everyone but Keomanivong’s voice quickly faded.
“At the end of the day, we’re doing the same movement over and over again for 200 or 400 or 2,000 meters. How do you get a whole group of 20 people to be fully in sync?,” she said.
Now, she barked a thoughtful stream-of-consciousness monologue, drawing deftly on inside jokes and personal experiences to motivate and entertain. In a particularly poignant moment, she quoted the anime “Haikyu!!” “If we keep holding on to yesterday, what are we going to be tomorrow?,” asked Keomanivong.
“I know you might be feeling some nerves as we get closer to race day,” she said. “Everything that we're doing today is a challenge. Whatever happened yesterday doesn’t matter.”
Keomanivong and her team are serious about training to win, but the competition is actually quite friendly. As they drifted back into the bay, the captains greeted other practicing teams warmly. Most of the local competitors know each other, and some have even paddled together. They are looking forward to the festival this weekend. Not just the competition, but the art, music and food, too.
The Colorado Dragon Boat Festival will be held this weekend on the west side of Sloan's Lake at 25th Avenue and Sheridan Boulevard in Denver. Races run 8 a.m. to dusk each day. Land-based festivities run 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday, July 27, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, July 28. Attendance is free. There is noto parking at the lake. Parking at Auraria Campus is $10 and a free shuttle will run to the lake.
This story is funded by the Neil Best Fellowship, a six-month program designed to engage talented students from local colleges and universities. For this fellowship, Gabe Allen is focused on expanding the station's presence on emerging platforms to reach broader and more diverse audiences.
