Highlighting the Hopi Butterfly Dance, the Float will Feature Authentic Hopi Dancers and Dozens of Organ, Eye, and Tissue Donors, Recipients, and Living Donors on New Year’s Day
OneLegacy announced today the theme of the 2024 OneLegacy Donate Life float: Woven Together: The Dance of Life. Building on their 20 years of floats and their 2023 Tournament of Roses Sweepstakes Award, the highest Tournament of Roses honor, OneLegacy will again be a part of the Rose Parade® on New Year’s Day of 2024 in Pasadena, California.
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2023 Rose Parade® Sweepstake Winners release 2024 OneLegacy Donate Life float color rendering and theme: Woven Together: The Dance of Life (Photo: Business Wire)
Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association President Alex Aghajanian selected the 2024 Rose Parade® theme, A World of Music. In a world of different cultures, beliefs, hopes, and dreams, one language unites us all — music. In the same way that music connects us all, organ, eye, and tissue donation brings a world of people together, thanks to the gift of life. The OneLegacy Donate Life float illustrates this theme by sharing a rich cultural heritage, craft, and music.
The Woven Together: The Dance of Life float showcases the culture of the Hopi, native to the American Southwest. This group of Pueblo Native Americans is one of the oldest cultures in the United States, originating approximately 7,000 years ago. The Hopi have always been outstanding weavers and artisans, and their dances include colorful costumes and impressive headdresses.
Award-winning float designer Charles Meier created a beautiful design that honors the culture and traditions of the Hopi and, by extension, all Native Americans. The fantastic team at Fiesta Parade Floats, headed by Tim Estes, will bring the float to life under the direction of the OneLegacy Donate Life float’s crew chiefs, Mike and Mimi Thompson. More than a thousand volunteers will help decorate the float with organic materials from October through December in preparation for the float’s trip down the streets of Pasadena on New Year’s Day.
The 2024 OneLegacy Donate Life float features a beautiful Butterfly Dancer wearing an impressive and intricate headdress. The Hopi Butterfly Dance is a two-day, ceremonial, social dance for young people in northern Arizona’s Hopi villages during late summer and early fall to celebrate the corn harvest. The maidens dress in elaborate headdresses called tablitas, which have symbols of corn, butterflies, and prayers. The dance pays homage to the butterflies that pollinate the corn, thus helping the crop prosper. Surrounding the dancer are traditionally woven baskets full of life-giving corn and other fruits from Hopi culture. Memorial floragraphs honoring life-giving organ, eye, and tissue donors will be displayed on the baskets; transplant recipients will ride on the float, and living donors will walk alongside it. This beautiful Native American scene is completed with prickly pear plants, stalks of corn, and fluttering butterflies.
To many Native Americans, dance is a form of inspiring storytelling that honors their culture and departed ancestors, making the float’s celebration of the Hopi Butterfly Dance both beautiful and meaningful. Additionally, the butterfly has a remarkable tie to organ donation and transplantation. The butterfly has long been a symbol of rebirth, from caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly, and has come to symbolize the power of donation and transplantation. In this way, the 2024 OneLegacy Donate Life Float follows the annual tradition of beautifully depicting people and cultures while sharing the human connection of caring for one another that brings us together.
“OneLegacy has produced the Donate Life float for 20 years, and we are excited to celebrate our 21st year with a community and culture for our own Southwest American region,” said Tom Mone, Chairman of the OneLegacy Donate Life float committee and Chief External Affairs Officer of OneLegacy, the nonprofit organ, eye, and tissue recovery organization serving the greater Los Angeles area. “We are especially honored to partner with the Hopi Tribal Council leaders to ensure our float is authentic and representative of their culture. Each year, we strive to share that the love and caring for one another that makes transplantation possible, knows no bounds. We continue to partner with organizations in California and nationwide to share the importance of saying “YES” to organ, eye, and tissue donation with millions of people watching the Rose Parade on New Year’s Day.”
The OneLegacy Donate Life Rose Parade float is produced by OneLegacy and is made possible thanks to dozens of sponsoring donation, transplant, healthcare, and family care organizations and individuals who help make donation and transplantation possible across the country.
As the world’s most visible campaign to inspire organ, eye and tissue donation, The OneLegacy Donate Life Rose Parade® float inspires viewers to help the over one million people in need of organ, eye or tissue transplants each year. Register today to become an organ, eye or tissue donor by visiting www.onelegacy.org/register
About the Pasadena Tournament of Roses® and The Rose Parade® presented by Honda
The Tournament of Roses is a volunteer organization that hosts America’s New Year Celebration® with the Rose Parade® presented by Honda, the Rose Bowl Game® and a variety of accompanying events. The Association’s 935 volunteer members supply more than 80,000 hours of manpower, which will drive the success of 133rd Rose Parade, themed “Dream. Believe. Achieve.,” on Saturday, January 1, 2022, followed by the 108th Rose Bowl Game. For more information, visit www.tournamentofroses.com. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.
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Contacts
Sarah E. Fahey
(213)-518-9820
Mediarelations@onelegacy.org