Working as a gallery assistant at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki and an usher at Q Theatre, I've spent many moments captive to the power of theatres and galleries. Like some benevolent spirit, these spaces stir in the presence of onlookers, offering inspiration and insight. They reward the contemplative and the curious. 

There are plenty of similarities between an exhibition space and a theatre. Dividing walls and plinths guides your eye in the way a theatre set might propel a narrative. Track lighting draws your attention the way a spotlight does. Whenever I see a gallery, I also see a theatre. Both spaces have a spiritual quality, offering a space for something to reveal itself, be it visual art, a performer, or a story. Setting a sculpture on a plinth isn't much different from preparing an altar. A group of actors warming up on a stage is a kind of ritual. In these spaces, customs are followed, and intentions are set in quiet reverence. But these spaces fall silent without inhabitants, and as with all spiritual exchanges, there is a cost. 

Through a series of poetic monologues, Champions follows four visual artists contending for a prestigious award. There's Claudia, the sculptor, shaped by Bronwyn Ensor, who masterfully projects an aloof demeanour, only disclosed by the constant noise of an anxious mind. Ensor lets you catch sight of Claudia's growing power, bubbling behind her doe-eyes. Fraser, the painter, is electrified by Alex Walker, who expertly bristles with the bravado of every abstract-expressionist-cis-white-art-bro to contain his virulent wrath. Mirabai Pease embodies Emmy. She doesn't subscribe to a sustained medium but oscillates between performance, moving image, and action. Pease subjugates her body as she processes the assault of the award's patron until Emmy's unadulterated rage emerges with the articulated precision of a dancer. Finally, there is Howie, the photographer, who is spoken into being by Dan Goodwin. Howie is adept at ceding space to others in favour of being an observer. Still, Goodwin vivifies him with nuanced rhythms that only a poet could keep. Howie is proficient at being unseen; perhaps that's why the possibility of his betrayal seems so unfathomable in the show's final moments. 

When one artist rejects a proposal to split the $50,000 cash prize, their relationships are pushed to extremes as they all try to 'make it' in a high-pressure environment. Rendered in momentary interludes, Champions is a Cubist composition of fragments that moves with a filmic pace through each artist's inner world. As much as it's a play of individuals, it's a story about the collective power of art and the people making it. At its core, Champions questions the true cost of making art.

The answer, in this climate, is everything. As Henry Oliver detailed in Metro's coverage of the crumbling creative infrastructure in Aotearoa, "The creation of culture takes money or time. Preferably both. So what happens when people don't have either?" [1] In the wake of the pandemic, applications for spaces and funding have been pulled taut, the cost of living pushed beyond reach, and fewer folks have disposable income, so it becomes a competitive race with fellow creatives to draw in an audience. With loud public voices targeting the arts as an illegitimate use of public spending and with the latest research into the lives of Aotearoa's creative professionals (courtesy of Creative New Zealand), the future feels phenomenally bleak. However, you wouldn't sense that while sitting in the rehearsal room of Champions. 

Although I had the pleasure of seeing the encore performance of Champions at The Basement, I also attended a rehearsal at OFA in the weeks leading up to its release. Nestled in the backlots of Karangahapae Road, the Old Folk's Association is also a creative haunt but less shiny than its Queen Street cousins. Typically underfunded and tired, but charming in its capacity to host anything from rehearsals to punk gigs, contemporary dance to zine markets. 

While the cast warmed up, the crew welcomed me: director, Harriett Maire helming the group alongside playwright Isabella McDermott and producer Tate Fountain, joined by their stage manager Hannah Brown, and sound designer Lachie Oliver-Kirby. [2] Essential to this encounter is the trifecta: Maire, McDermott and Fountain, who set the course by embracing the decompression from our day jobs, side hustles, and event work, ensuring everyone is entirely present for the rehearsal. In this kind of viewing, it is clear how much goes into a production like Champions. While I'm partly referring to plenty of unremunerated labour, I also mean that they have intentionally and successfully built this work from a culture of intentionality and kindness. Although this work is about the financial, emotional, physical, and spiritual costs of creating, the team behind its production are compelled to make art differently. They endure the cost as a collective—one that acknowledges how difficult it can be but braces one another against the storm. 

A teacher once likened making films under the restriction of The Hays Code to squeezing a lump of clay in your hands. You can try to close off all avenues for its expansion, but it'll find a way to emerge unexpectedly. The characters in Champions are willing to give everything for their shot at a life-changing award. The cast and crew of Champions critically push against that rhetoric, acknowledging the challenges of creating in this climate but choosing to offer up what they can to appease the restless spirit. They sacrifice time spent in other jobs that might pay their rent, forge protective talismans through their collectivism, and make space for one another as they pour out the narrative alongside their vulnerability as artists.

In the opening moments of the performance, quiet falls across the congregation as light and sound fill the air. The apostles enter, summoning the space from its slumber. Howie begins the incantation: "I always saw a stage with spotlights," and Emmy concludes, "This could change my life." The spirit beckons us to view the vision.

[1] Oliver. Henry. "Metro Magazine and the Curious Case of Collapsing Culture", Metro Magazine, Issue 438, Autumn 2023. 

[2] Absent from that particular rehearsal, but nevertheless integral, are lighting designer and operator Michael Goodwin, movement director Liv Tennet and stylist Tori Amber.