100% Darwin
© Tim Mitchell
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100% Darwin

By Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel

54% of the population in Darwin is male, 1% is over 85 years, whereas there are 7% in the age of 0-4 years. 25% of the inhabitants are staying in the district Palmerston, 10% in Darwin are one-parents families, 2% were born in mainland Europe, 3% are from African or Middle East decent and 66% were born in Australia...

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 Darwin’s 129,062 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 Darwin’s life in a way graphs or pie-charts never could. Spreading throughout the city over five months, 100% Darwin 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 Northern territory’s capital.

100% Darwin - 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 Darwin? Who thinks that this city is different because they are a part of it?

Concept: Rimini Protokoll (Helgard Haug, Stefan Kaegi, Daniel Wetzel)
Direction: Helgard Haug, Daniel Wetzel
Stage design: Mascha Mazur, Jenny Hector
Technical director/ Lighting and projection design: Jenny Hector
Research and Casting: Bec Reid
Band: David Spry