100% Gwangju

By Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel

Only 1% of Gwangju's population has a non-Korean passport, 6% are over 70 years and 10% between 0 - 10 years of age. 51% of the Gwangjuans are women and 3% migrated from the korean region Jeonnam.

For statistical purposes, people are regularly converted into pie wedges, bars and curves – which are then used to make political arguments or to create economic cost-benefit strategies. What if these statistics were given faces? What if Gwanju’s 1.416.937 population was represented on stage by 100 persons?
In a world bombarded with ‘lies, damned lies and statistics’ this cross-section of the society could tell the truth of modern South Korean life in a way graphs or pie-charts never could. Spreading throughout the city over five months, 100% Gwangju began with the casting of one member who had to recruit another in 24 hours, who then recruited another and so on – all according to specific criteria of age, gender, household type, geography and ethnicity mirroring the demographic make-up of Korea's 6th biggest city.

100% Gwangju – a gathering that is a city, a group just beginning to experience itself, a choir that has never practiced, an impossible entity with many faces – assembled into ever-changing new group pictures: group pictures as replacement for family – as fleeting portraits of belonging. Who is missing? Who thinks they might give answers on stage that are different from the ones they’d give in response to a telephone survey or in the voting booth? And what have the statistics failed to record? Who lives in a completely different Gwangju? Who thinks that this city is different because they are a part of it?

Concept: Rimini Protokoll (Helgard Haug, Stefan Kaegi, Daniel Wetzel)
Director: Helgard Haug, Stefan Kaegi
Stage Design Adaption: Mascha Mazur, Andreas Mihan
Video, Lighting: Marc Jungreitmeier, Andreas Mihan
Sound: Nikolas Neecke

Band: Joyful Island
Coordinator and head of production: Soo-eun Lee
Translator: Kim Donghun, Kim Yoona, Kim Jongmi, Kim Jinjoo
Caption Translation: Kim Kiran
Casting Coordinator: Kim Yeonkyung, Kim Hanyul, Lee Kyungmi, Lee Junghyun
Performance Record & Documentary film: Director Kang Sangwoo, Producer Ahn Jihwan

Production: Asian Art Theatre
Host: Ministry of Culture,
Hub City of Asian Culture Gwangju,
The National Theater of Korea (Co-host in Seoul)
Principal: Institute of Asian Culture Development

Dates

Gwangju, Grand Theater, Gwangju Culture & Art Center

19. – 20.04.2014

Seoul, Hae-orum Theater National Theater of Korea

26. – 27.04.2014

Current dates / All dates

Audio / Video

Video - Documentation
Documentation