Nõ Studios Builds Community Among Milwaukee’s Creative Class

BY MICHAEL CARRIERE

One of the most significant additions to Milwaukee’s cultural landscape over the past five years was the 2018 opening of Nō Studios in the Historic Pabst Brewery District. The brainchild of Milwaukee native and Oscar-winning screenwriter John Ridley, the space immediately became a destination for both filmmakers and film lovers. Yet what made Nō Studios truly unique was the way the building also sought to build a sense of community among the city’s creative class. In addition to screening rooms, Nō Studios also featured co-working spaces, a café bar, a performance stage, and a rooftop lounge and deck.

Such spaces were meant to encourage in-person collaboration. But what happens when a global pandemic makes such arrangements untenable? As Lisa Caesar, Nō Studios’ chief operating officer, explains, “We did a pretty significant pivot during COVID.” For Caesar, this meant that Nō Studios had to embrace “new tools” as they “sought to serve a community of creatives and a community of activists and organizations that are mission-based.” Caesar understood that the pandemic did not stop such individuals from working; indeed, in some cases it made their work even more important. Throughout the pandemic, Nō Studios was able to utilize such “tools” as Zoom and other streaming platforms to make sure important voices continued to be heard.

As the pandemic (hopefully) comes to end, Caesar admits that Nō Studios is “still trying to navigate the post-COVID environment.” In very real ways, though, the organization is trying to take what it learned during that past two years to expand their offerings. Artists and creatives, as Caesar notes, “want to be seen.” In-person events that are also simultaneously live-streamed allow for greater exposure for artists. Nō Studios has taken a similar post-pandemic hybrid approach for other types of programming. A recent workshop on website design, for example, featured both an in-person option and a virtual option. “That wouldn’t have occurred to us in 2019,” notes Caesar. For Caesar, such a

Photo by Basi.

strategy will allow Nō Studios to better adapt to life in a small market (Milwaukee), in a section of that market that doesn’t get a lot of foot traffic (the Historic Pabst Brewery District). “How do you serve community when folks are having to travel to see us?”, asks Caesar. For Nō Studios, the answer to this question is starting to come into focus.

CONTENT CREATION

Yet perhaps the most exciting component of Nō Studios’ response to COVID-19 has been their transformation into an actual content creator. As their physical space sat underutilized, the organization’s leadership team realized they could utilize the building itself as a production facility. During the pandemic, Nō Studios begin creating content for WISN 12; that relationship has continued post-pandemic. Nō Studios is now also providing content for Milwaukee magazine. Caesar sees these burgeoning media relationships as synergistic, as such outlets provide new ways for Milwaukee artists to be seen by as any people as possible. “We want to be disruptive,” concludes Caesar, “but we don’t want to displace.”

Ultimately, Nō Studios’ post-pandemic philosophy is rooted in an evolving concept of accessibility. And accessibility, while important on its own, is also necessary to grow community. Virtual programming allows for greater access to content, while in-house production facilities allow for greater access to the tools that create content. And all of these tools bring more and more people together, both in the building and in cyberspace. “What we are doing,” suggests Caesar, “is a twenty-first century version of community building, using all of these tools.” It is an intriguing proposition, and one hopes that Caesar is right. For Milwaukee circa late 2022, any efforts that work to build community should not only be noted—they should be championed.

Michael Carriere is an associate professor in MSOE’s Humanities, Social Science and Communication Department and coauthor of The City Creative: The Rise of Urban Placemaking in Contemporary America.