Menominee Pageant chosen as Wisconsin's only Smithsonian America 250 event

Keshena’s Menominee Pageant will carry Menominee County onto a national stage July 29, as Wisconsin’s only event in the Smithsonian’s America 250 lineup. The selection gives the annual Woodland Bowl production a visibility boost well beyond the reservation, while keeping the focus on a tradition that has long opened Menominee Powwow week with language, legend, music and dance.

The Smithsonian program, Of the People: The Smithsonian Festival of Festivals, will include about 40 festivals across the country, with the Menominee Pageant serving as Wisconsin’s entry. That matters locally because the pageant is not just another summer performance. It is a living expression of Menominee history, staged in the Woodland Bowl through pantomime, live music and Native dance, and rooted in the community’s own voice and memory.

This year’s production centers on a new script, Timeless Teachings. The Menominee Pageant Players Guild assembled it from A Sampling of Menominee Legends, created by the Menominee Tribal Historic Office, and The Legend of the Dells by the late Theresa Wescott, along with additional songs and performances from Menominee youth. The result is a fresh staging that still reaches back to older teachings and keeps Menominee language and identity at the center.

The Smithsonian partnership also brings practical gains that can be felt on site, not just in headlines. Existing sponsors, including the Wisconsin Arts Board, the Menominee Powwow Committee and Taproot Artists and Community Trust, are helping make possible new lighting and technical equipment, along with a dedicated sound system requested by elders for the top of the amphitheater. Those upgrades should improve how the pageant is heard and seen by the families, performers and elders who fill the bowl each year.

The collaboration also creates intern and mentorship opportunities for younger performers, strengthening a pipeline that links youth to the adults who have carried the pageant forward. For Menominee County residents, that is the deeper significance of the Smithsonian recognition: national attention is coming to a hometown tradition, but the production remains grounded in local control, intergenerational teaching and a community celebration that starts powwow week on its own terms.