We are proud to present the 2025-26 Be Bold Residency artists:
- QiQi Music – Immersive Performance & Music
- Nathan McGlynn – Queer Performance
- Lee Ramseyer Bache – Expanded Cinema
- Ricardo Magno – Bilingual Theatre
The Bowery Theatre Residency program enables artists and arts organisations to make and present work with and for the Brimbank community. The 2025-2026 community-engaged projects span theatre, music, expanded cinema, and site-specific public performance.
As part of the residency program, the selected artists will take risks and shape new works to be presented at The Bowery Theatre. The program offers financial and in-kind support, to enable creativity, connections, and artist development.
Artists
QiQi Music
Echoes of the Earth
Immersive Performance & Music
QiQi is a Melbourne-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, and cultural producer whose work blends guzheng, double bass, and percussion with contemporary composition and cross-cultural collaboration. Their award-nominated jazz fusion project Elysian Blues — a meeting of guzheng, piano, and percussion — was presented at the 2024 and 2025 Melbourne Fringe Festivals to critical acclaim. QiQi’s recent work also includes a commissioned piece for the Premier of Victoria and a guzheng and Māori performing arts collaboration with Ngā Mātai Pūrua Inc. They have performed at major venues such as NGV, Melbourne Museum, Crown Palladium, and Fed Square, and continue to expand the artistic possibilities of the guzheng in innovative performance settings.
Artform: Immersive music and theatre integrating projection and interactive design. Audiences move through the space, guided by visual and sonic cues, making choices that influence the work’s ending. The performance blends guzheng, jazz piano, percussion, and additional instruments with layered soundscapes and lighting to trace the evolution of Earth and invite reflection on our environmental future.
Total cast and crew: QiQi (Guzheng/Double Bass/Artistic Lead/Composer/Co Producer), Darby Lee(Piano/Composer), Alexander Meagher (Percussion/Performer), Maddie Garwood (Lighting), Amy Todd (Vision Design). Madison Lu (Costume/Set Design), Chi Cheung (Co Producer/Admin), Steve Pass (Sound/Audio Technician)
Nathan McGlynn
Queer Performance
Nathan McGlynn is a gallerist, life drawing teacher, and artist, whose practice revolves around community and figurative art, focusing on themes of queer identity, intimacy, and vulnerability. He has presented 11 Darling Boy exhibitions across 10 galleries, with the body of work evolving each time, reinterpreting traditional imagery through a queer lens.
As the founder of Changing Room Gallery, an artist-led initiative based in the Motley Bauhaus, Nathan amplifies queer voices in the arts and provides a platform for emerging artists through community engagement.
Nathan’s residency project is a multi-layered performance experience based on his painted character, the Darling Boy. The work explores the fluidity and complexity of human connection and draws inspiration from the story of Leigh Bowery, who grew up in Sunshine.
Nathan will be collaborating with Hugo Williams from Pony Cam theatre company, and Charlee Brooks from Grandpas Bookclub.
Lee Ramseyer Bache
The Earth is in (Y)our Hands
Expanded Cinema
Lee is an artist, scriptwriter, producer, and director whose work explores humanity's subjugation of the living world and the importance of responsible technology, through place-based storytelling. Driven by a desire to extend storytelling beyond traditional cinema and theatre, and into the public realm, his multi-disciplinary creative practice responds to the evolving nature of collaborative storytelling as well as changing perceptions of place and public space. Lee aims to connect the public with the living world and drive social change through his work. This practice immerses him in communities to celebrate regenerative narratives that help restore a sense of place and community identity.
Lee’s residency project, The Earth is in (Y)our Hands is an expanded cinema performance told by the fungi, plants and animals of Brimbank. Here, the human is no longer merely the observer, but becomes the observed.
Lee will be collaborating with Wiradjuri man Dylan Singh (creative producer, circus and dance performer, First Nations community facilitator), Ex-Ponto’s Ivan Masic (sound designer and video Artist), Little Projector Company, and The GREEN Lab at Iramoo Grassland Centre and Nursery.
Ricardo Magno
The Encounters - Mga Salubong
Bilingual Theatre
Ricardo is a theatre director, performer, and facilitator who received his initial theatre training from the Cultural Center of the Philippines. He holds a Master’s degree in Theatre from the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, where he also received the Barbara Manning Award for Drama.
His recent directing credits include: Aswang (VCA Director’s Showcase 2023, La Mama 2024) and The Field of Forgotten Dreams (La Mama 2024). Performance credits include Baliti at Melbourne Fringe 2024 (direction by Tony Yap), as well as the 2024 Melaka MAPFest and Coburg MAPFest.
Ricardo’s residency project, The Encounters - Mga Salubong, is an original Filipino monodrama that explores themes related to identity and migration through folklore.
Ricardo will be collaborating with performer Mayen Estanero, dramaturg Enya Daly, and lighting designer Giovanna Yate Gonzalez.