100% Stellenbosch

By Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel

Your view of the South African city Stellenbosch may vary widely depending on what neighborhood you live in, how much money you make and what skin colour you have, which language you speak. The city means radically different things to different people because of how they experience it—beliefs, politics, concerns are often the results of people's isolated experiences.

51% of the population in Stellenbosch is female, 25% is younger than 15, whereas there are only 5% older than 66. 16% of the official 155.733 inhabitants live in the centre of the university city and only 2% of them are born in Asia. 21% speak mainly isisXhosa.

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 Stellenbosch’s population was represented on stage by 100 persons?

Everyone knows there are others who differ radically from themselves—they can read the statistics. But what happens when those "statistics" share a stage together? What happens when those hot button issues are addressed live to 100 true representatives of the cross section of the city? What side of the pie chart would you walk to? Who will stand apart? Who will fall back into the majority?

Spreading throughout the city over three months ago, 100% Stellenbosch 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, language and population group mirroring the demographic make-up South African's „City of Oaks“.

100% Stellenbosch - 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.

Direction: Helgard Haug, Daniel Wetzel
Stage: Mascha Mazur, Marc Jungreithmeier
Technical Director / Lightning Design/ Video Design: Andreas Mihan
Sound Design: Frank Böhle
Band: Schalk Joubert
Research and Casting: Vida Viljoen

100% Stellenbosch is produced by the US Woordfees in co-production with Rimini Apparat

Dates

Stellenbosch, Woordfees / HB Thom Theatre

23. – 25.02.2018

Current dates / All dates

Documentation

100% Stellenbosch

Interviews

100% Stellenbosch: A whole town on a stage
Menán van Heerden, Naomi Meyer
23.02.2018 / litnet.co.za