The Patio Chair Drill Team readies its pivots and twirls for its star turn in Sunday's 24th Balboa Island Parade

By Hillary DavisStaff Writer

June 2, 2017 3:20 PM PT

At Park and Marine avenues on Balboa Island, where residents and visitors strolled leisurely with their dogs and ate locally famous frozen bananas Thursday evening, another whimsical island tradition was on display.

To the bounding skiffle of the old song “In the Summertime,” about 20 women twirled, pivoted and strutted in time with white plastic patio chairs as their dance partners. And when their leader called out “5, 6, 7 and rainbow!” they raised and swept their chairs in arcs above their heads.

This is the Patio Chair Drill Team, a star of the Balboa Island Parade, which returns for its 24th year on Sunday.

Holly Whalls is in her third year as the team’s choreographer. Last year she used a megaphone to call out instructions and encouragement but still went hoarse.

This year she’s using a headset attached to a voice amplifier clipped to her waistband. It looks very official, very head coach, but it was hard for her or anybody else at Thursday’s parade practice session to talk about the Patio Chair Drill Team without smiling.

“It’s just cute,” she said.

The Internet shows no shortage of teams around the country performing synchronized routines with chairs — usually folding lawn chairs with low-slung aluminum legs and woven nylon webbing for seats.

Those teams may put on a good show, but they’re not the Patio Chair Drill Team, which is in its 17th year.

“I will brag on these guys — you won’t see anybody like them,” Whalls said.

The Balboa Island Parade is a lighthearted slice of Norman Rockwell-style Americana on Balboa Island, where the Marine Avenue bridge and the island’s Cape Cod homes are festooned with red, white and blue bunting for Sunday’s event.

For three short blocks from the bridge to the fire station at Park Avenue, performers, children on bikes, dogs in costumes, residents in decorated golf carts and dignitaries in snazzy cars will cheerfully usher in summer. There are marching bands from USC and local high schools, a group of Keystone Kops and, of course, the drill and chair-imony.

Meridee Banas founded the Patio Chair Drill Team and has a copyright on its name.

The performance is harder than it looks, she said. The team has been practicing for 2½ months.

The chairs are scuffed and showing their age, but the team holds onto them because they have flat-top headrests, Banas said. Similar chairs with rounded headrests are easier to find, but they tend to roll down the sloping bridge.

The team started with 12 women and a boombox playing “Summer Nights” from “Grease,” though nobody could hear it. But the crowd loved them. Now they have sponsors, an improved sound system and a choice spot at the end.

“They say it’s like waiting for Santa at the Macy’s parade,” Banas said.

Gail Vasterling, the Balboa Island Parade’s publicity chairwoman, talks up the bands playing the parade’s after-party — the Fabulous Nomads, Big Wednesday and Gunnar Gehl — and the new beer and wine garden at the route’s end.

She used to be on the Patio Chair Drill Team herself. She knows where the parade’s bread is buttered.

“Them and the SC band are what everyone waits for,” she said.