In today’s post-modern world, it can feel like we’re juggling chalk and cheese while hopping on one foot. Trying to pursue our dreams while also keeping up with the rising cost of living. Focusing on being present as our lives become increasingly busy. Scrolling through Instagram from our couches and being bombarded by health and wellness influencers. Life can feel like a dichotomous circus act that we’re all performing.

So when Malcolm Whittaker – a 36-year-old performing artist and co-creator of the theatre company Shammgods – spoke to me about the struggle to do what he loves while making ends meet, his creative and tounge-in-cheek response to these very real challenges resonated with me.

Some readers may remember Malcolm from Ignoramus Anonymous support groups that he ran at Thirroul Community Centre in 2017. More recently, he developed Shammgods with Nitin Vengurlekar and Matt Prest. The trio has an impressive list of accolades and qualifications – between them, they've worked as academics, researchers, performers, writers and directors of theatre productions. Malcolm and Matt are currently tutors at the University of Wollongong.

And while the work of such artists is vital to our culture, the unfortunate reality is that it’s often underpaid.

“We have something of a bio that we sometimes put, which is maybe a bit facetious, where we list all our credentials and then itemise how much superannuation we’ve made between us,” Malcolm said.

The trio seems to be making a satirical point with their new series of side business ventures that they created alongside their show, Shammgods – Live. On the Shammgods website, you can find a ‘certified’ fashion range called Shammwear featuring ‘Edition Limitee’ tracksuit sets and ‘Sydney 2000 Baseball Caps’. You can also get a free quote for their lawn and garden care business, titled Shammlawns, where each service is “100% certified and comes with a Certificate of Authenticity and unique serial number”. And a more recent endeavour is a talent agency, titled ‘Shammstars, stage and screens solutions run by talent for talent’ which they are close to releasing.

“Reaching this mid-career point in our artistic careers and vocations, there was the reality check of how difficult this business is and that we need to start diversifying our income stream,” Malcolm said.

Shammgods – Live, which the group describes as “the original Shammgods experience”, will be performed at Merrigong Theatre Company’s pop-up Spiegeltent in June. The show emerged from Matt, Nitin and Malcolm’s shared history of theatre making, a passion for sport and the hypothesis that ‘"maybe there’s money in dance?"

God Shammgodd, a basketball player from the 90s, inspired the company's name and a series of choreographic scores in the show. Rehearsing at the Triple Menace Studios, a name the group coined to represent "the Shammgods spiritual home", they began by generating material off the famous sport star's basketball moves. Malcolm likened their creative process to a band's, where they would respond to rudimentary beats played from a monophonic synth and drum machine.

“We all like music as well and we were all hanging out jamming, as if we were a band. Like our jamming involves improvising on the floor for one another, trying to just amuse one another with nothing more than our bodies in space.”

What emerged was a series of choreographic tracks that they play for an audience while they strive to “become gods on stage”. In their pursuit, they “only ever end up being hopeless frauds” but find a new sense of virtuosity through being on stage and remaining present with the audience.

Resisting the elaborate sets and technical requirements that are typical of large live productions, Shammgods instead have minimal lighting changes and wear loose-fitting active wear with aspirational slogans. These choices reflect how they are working in front of the audience to become fitter, happier and more productive versions of themselves.

“It’s the work of being and being as work,” Malcolm said.

You can see Shammgods at The Spiegeltent at 1:30pm on Saturday, June 10. Tickets are available here