Amelia Schafer
ICT
Federal policies made it illegal for a Native person to dance in public 91 years ago.
However, in 2025 a group of nine Indigenous dancers from across the United States and Canada are preparing to take the stage at the world-renowned Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City.
“We wanted to really showcase our culture and let the world know that we still exist, that we’re not in museums or history books, or are something that you read about in the past,” said Larry Yazzie, Meskwaki and the founder and executive director of Native Pride Productions. “I really wanted to show the world that we are, we’re alive and well, and our culture is passed down to our younger generations.”
Communities represented by dancers in the group include the Eastern Shoshone tribe, the Red Lake Ojibwe Nation, Red Pheasant Cree First Nation, Animakee Wa Zhing #37 First Nation, the Meskwaki Nation of Iowa and Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska.
The Macy’s parade, which will celebrate its 99th anniversary this year, is viewed on the ground by up to 3 million people with an additional 31 million tuning in on TV and streaming platforms.
This year will be the third time Native Pride Productions, a Native media and production company based in Jacksonville, Florida, has taken the stage at the parade. Their last appearance was in 2013.
“Anytime we get a call like this, it’s a big honor,” Yazzie said. “I really wanted to share it with our youth and other dancers who really never had the opportunity to be on the big stage, and because the selected dancers I chose are the ones that I really look up to and respected, and they work so hard for their families, and they’re representing the communities very well.”
From 1883 to 1933, it was illegal for Native people to dance in public following the passage of the Code of Indian Offenses. The government’s ban on Native ceremonies and cultural dances was part of a larger effort to assimilate Native people into mainstream culture.
But it failed. Native people retained many cultural practices and traditional dance forms.
While the law was mostly focused on preventing cultural and spiritual dances, it included broad sweeping measures to prevent any Native dancing. Dances went underground during that time, sometimes breaking free to be showcased as “patriotic” celebrations on holidays like the Fourth of July or Veteran homecomings.
Now, almost a century later, Native dances can and will be celebrated on one of the largest stages in America.
Three generations of dancers will be featured in the performance on Thursday morning, Yazzie said.
Yazzie himself is the oldest at 58, representing the elders, he said. One of the youngest dancers Wambli Dolezal, also known as Baby Wam, is a seven-year-old Winnebago boy who caught Indian Country’s attention at the Black Hills Powwow when he and fellow woodland dancer, Opie Day-Bedeau, stole the show in the annual grand entry dance competition.
The two woodland dancers linked arms, spinning around with their wooden clubs held high. It was a breathtaking moment, said Dolezal’s mother Cassie Kitcheyan, a citizen of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska.
Woodland traditional is a style of dance specific to the eastern woodland regions of the United States and Canada and is a style danced by tribes like the Menominee, Ho-Chunk, Ojibwe, Meskwaki, Potawatomi and many more.
Woodland traditional regalia often features floral beadwork or applique usually over black velveteen. Both men and women who dance woodland traditional often depict stories of battle or scenes from nature in their dances. Men will often tell the story of a battle using items like wooden clubs while woodland women will move gracefully around the arena occasionally mimicking rowing in a canoe, bow hunting or picking berries during honor beats.
Depending on the region, women woodland often dance scrub style. It is a dance where women wearing vibrant satin applique skirts softly hop around the arena on the balls of their feet with their arms moving up and down in a scrubbing motion.
Woodland styles, particularly the woodland strap dress, saw a large resurgence in 2025.
“It was just so awesome to see woodland on that stage,” Kitcheyan said. “Woodland tribes, woodland dancing highlighted at a Powwwow like Black Hills – that was my favorite part.”
Dolezal, a citizen of the Winnebago (Ho-Chunk) Tribe of Nebraska and of Dakota, Lakota and Apache descent, caught Yazzie’s attention in May at the Meskwaki Nation’s Graduation Powwow in Iowa.
Dolezal jumped in on a men’s woodland special, and the Winnebago kid breezed through the arena. Yazzie, who frequently emcee’s for the Meskwaki powwow’s, said he knew then and there he wanted the second grader to be part of the Macy’s Parade team this fall.
“I think he brings a light to the circle, to our people,” Kitcheyan said.
Dolezal has been dancing all his life, Kitcheyan said. He first began dancing woodland style at four years old, and it inspired his older brother to switch from grass to woodland, she said. As a mother, she’s a little nervous about her son dancing on that big of a stage, but she said she’ll be with him every step of the way and can’t wait to see what he does. For Dolezal, all he said he wants is some New York-style pizza and a trip to the Jelly Cat stuffed animal store.
“I think about this a lot, ‘What is it about him that draws people in,’” Kitcheyan said. “And I think he brings a light to the circle, to our people. He’s a good dancer. He is just so cute. And I don’t know, I think he reminds people maybe of the goodness and the sacredness of our youth.”
The Winnebago community is excited for him as well, Kitcheyan said. On Nov. 20, the Winnebago School District hosted a send-off for Dolezal where he was celebrated and given good luck wishes for his journey to New York City. He’s also gotten support from across Indian Country, she said.
“All the kind words and everything, I’m just really thankful and we take it all to heart, but try not to take it for granted,” she said. “It just means a lot, and that’s what’s getting us through. That’s our strength and we’re just grateful for all the support.”
Dolezal won’t be the only woodland dancer on the stage, being Meskwaki himself, Yazzie said he made sure to include the style.
The dance group will showcase a variety of woodland styles including women’s scrub and men’s woodland. Aside from woodland dancing, there will be jingle dress dancers, men’s fancy dancers and others. Yazzie himself will be dancing men’s fancy bustle.
Yazzie said the group will be working hard in the days leading up to Thursday, Nov. 27 to get their routine down. The routine has to be about one minute long and will be held when the group stops outside of the NBC building on the 2.5 mile long parade route.
“It’s a hurry up and wait situation to get our routine down,” Yazzie said. “The logistics are very nerve wracking for me.”
Yazzie said he was first approached by Macy’s producers 20 years ago in 2005. Producers asked if he and his son would be open to dancing on a float with singer songwriter Rita Coolidge on the “Soaring Spirit Canoe” float.
Native Pride Productions returned again in 2013 with a group of men’s fancy dancers performing at the parade.
The Macy’s parade has begun to feature more and more Indigenous dancers in recent years. With dance troupe Indigenous Enterprise participating in 2023 and 2024. In 2021, 2022 and 2023, the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, the tribe commonly associated with the original Thanksgiving myth, was given a float. 2021 was the 400th anniversary of the Thanksgiving myth.
HOW TO WATCH
The parade will go live at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time in New York City on Thursday, Nov. 27.
Native Pride Productions is scheduled to perform sometime between 10 and 10:30 a.m. EST, though the time may change depending on the parade’s movement.
The parade will be available for live-streaming on NBC and Peacock with later re-runs on both platforms starting at 2 p.m. EST.