PRESENTED BY
Creating Milwaukee is a
mini-documentary series
produced by Nō Studios and presented by The American Family insurance Institute for Corporate and Social Impact. It focuses on Milwaukee creatives across various disciplines, highlighting their work and stories.
MARQUISE - EPISODE 5
Featuring Marquise Mays: filmmaker, programmer and film professor.
Marquise Mays
Marquise Mays is an award-winning filmmaker, programmer and film professor living and working in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Experienced in a variety of film and arts practices, Marquise's films and research are careful renderings of individual and collective Black life on and off screen, specifically as it relates to the Black Midwestern experience. His work has been distributed and featured on the renowned Criterion Channel, PBS, BET, AspireTV & The Redford Center, alongside a slew of national and international film festivals.
Whether it be a sweeping study of one woman’s blindness and insight (Blindspot, Director, 2020); or surveying the intimate history of Latasha Harlins, an often-overlooked figure in the L.A. riots depicted in the Student Academy Award Winning Film, The Dope Years (Associate Producer, 2019); or interrogating the unrequited love between Black kids and the city of Milwaukee (The Heartland, Director, 2021); or interrogating the function of first responders (BLACK STRINGS, Director, 2023) Marquise seeks to capture the humanity of individual subjects with precision and integrity. Indeed, Marquise’s films and multimedia work evince a sympathetic depth and clarity of voice.
Outside of his film work, Marquise is currently an Assistant Professor in Peck School of Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In addition, he is the Black Lens Cinema Programmer for Milwaukee Film and co-facilitates their Take 1: Filmmaking Lab and Souls of Young Folk Programming Initiative.
ELISABETH - EPISODE 4
Featuring Elisabeth Roskopf: dancer, performer, choreographer, educator and pianist.
Elisabeth Roskopf
is a dancer, performer, choreographer, educator, pianist, and a mother to her daughter, Alina. Elisabeth was born in South Korea and raised in Appleton, Wisconsin where she began dancing at the age of 6. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire where she earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Piano and a minor in Dance. She is a company member of Li Chiao-Ping Dance, Danceworks Performance MKE, the Gina Laurenzi Dance Project, and a performance collaborator with Wild Space Dance Company. In addition to her performing, she is a ballet and contemporary teacher and choreographer in the Greater Milwaukee Area. She teaches ballet and modern classes as a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she is currently earning her Master of Fine Arts degree in Dance. Elisabeth is the Founder and Creative Director of Dance For Diversity, an annual screendance project series that is made explicitly for Artists of Color to elevate their unique voices and share their stories of identity through dance-making and performance work. For this inaugural season, DFD is partnering with Danceworks, Inc. Recently, she signed on as a model and actress with The Belle Agency in hopes that she can create greater representation for herself, her daughter, and other Asian Americans in the film industry.
KLASSIK - EPISODE 3
Kellen “Klassik” Abston is an award-winning Milwaukee-based musician, producer, songwriter, performing artist, and community curator.
Kellen 'Klassik' Abston
Named the City of Milwaukee's 2021 Mildred L. Harpole "Artist of the Year", Klassik's jazz-saturated hip-hop/soul, informed by years of traditional jazz study and Milwaukee Public Schools arts education, has taken him from summer festival stages and crowds of thousands, to classroom settings inspiring youth of all ages throughout Wisconsin. His 2019 LP "QUIET.", was named the #1 album of the year by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and was awarded Critic's Choice and Solo Artist honors at the 2019 Radio Milwaukee Music Awards. 2022 saw Klassik collaborating with both the Milwaukee Art Museum, producing the original composition and video performance "Nobody's Watching", and Milwaukee Chamber Theatre, producing and performing an all-original score for their production of Brian Quijada’s "Where Did We Sit On The Bus?". A true "Klass Act", Klassik works to stir the souls of listeners into action with empathy, passion, and purpose through his own vulnerable and self-reflective sonic art.
JOVANNY - EPISODE 2
"For me, it's always been about creating work by my community, for my community."
—Jovanny Caballero
Jovanny Hernandez Caballero
is a Milwaukee community artist and photographer. His work explores themes of his cultural heritage and identity, as a first generation American and descendants of Mixtecs. Through his photography, he documents the beauty of Milwaukee's South Side and his family's native land of Oaxaca, Mexico.
"From the first steps of my ancestors in the mountains of Oaxaca, to my parent's first steps in the United States, my family represents who I am. My identity is a mixture of three worlds; the ancient, the modern, and the world my parents left behind in Mexico. I am unable to enter each world completely due to physical and emotional barriers. I can only see my family through the cracks of the fence, unable to grasp their hands. They have become like a photographic exposure; overexposed, blurry, and incomplete.
I am the son of immigrants and a first-generation American. When I was a child my parents would tell stories of the beautiful mountains that covered the land, a blue church that is the heart of their village, and the history of our indigenous roots. My mother would also tell stories of the times she was a child and would tell me how much she missed her home but most importantly how much she missed her parents. At a young age, I understood the sacrifice my parents made in order to give me and my siblings a better life. I am not only sharing the stories of my family through art but the stories of millions of migrants who make the same sacrifice in order to achieve a better life and future for their children. My artwork serves as a celebration of the resiliency, courage, and determination of migrants, the aspects that truly make migration beautiful."
GEGO Y NONY
Sons of a musical family, brothers Gego y Nony are what the industry considers a triple threat. These two artists sing, rap, and write their own music. With deep Puerto Rican roots the duo has a love affair with music, especially reggaetón.
With much praise on the album Gego Y Nony they earned the chance to perform at a few major festivals, Like the Puerto Rican festival in Milwaukee and Chicago, Summerfest with direct support for Lunay, and direct support during Mexican Fiesta for Noriel. To close 2021, Gego Y Nony won Album of the Year for the RMMA’s, were mentioned on World Café’s Heavy Rotation in October for NPR, and the list goes on. In 2022 they released their second official video for the single, "Reloj."
A COMPLEX TAPESTRY
Milwaukee is a complex historical tapestry. Within concrete wastelands, amidst cream city brick, rises our city of today.
