100% Tokyo

By Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel

In 2011 Tokyo metropolitan government counted some 9.055.257 inhabitans for the core of the city, which equals 4,1 people per square meters on average. 49 percent of Tokyos population is female. Regarding the 2,5 percent registered foreigners in Tokyo most of them are chinese (two out of five). 25 percent live in a single household on their own. And almost 15 percent is older than 70 years old.  Meanwhile the difference between daytime population and nighttime population differs of about 3 million people and in total the city keeps growing and growing. 
Statistics gather people and pack them into pieces of pie, into bars and curves that are used for political argumentation and the creation of economic strategies. What if these statistics were given faces? What if Tokyo city's 9.055.257 population was represented on stage by 100 persons? 100%Tokyo takes the risk and generates the average of one of the most densly populated cities of the planet. In a world bombarded with ‘lies, damned lies and statistics’ this cross-section of the society could tell the truth of modern Tokyo life in a way graphs or pie-charts never could. Spreading throughout Tokyo over four months, 100% Tokyo 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 status, nationality and district mirroring the demographic make-up of this mammoth metropolis. At first, this casting process was easy. But with each passing day, the stakes increased. As the various statistical categories began to fill up, the chances of finding people who could occupy the remaining categories became more remote. Gaps had to be filled, new connections established, some people could only be found through newspaper ads and networking. But now, around four months later, these 100 Tokyoites are filing onto a revolving, circular stage in Tokyo Metropolitan Playhouse.
Tonight, they are performers, they are very special people – and they are percentage. Each individual on stage represents roughly 90.553 Tokyoites – together they a choir that has never practiced singing, an impossible entity with many faces, an ornament of us. They are Tokyo, giving answers to questions that are beyond statistics. And coming with their own questions. How many of them have done something that would like to forget? How many think the future world will be a better one? Who thinks that this city is different, because they are a part of it? 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?

 

Concept, Format: Rimini Protokoll (Helgard Haug, Stefan Kaegi, Daniel Wetzel)
Direction: Daniel Wetzel
Dramaturge, Co-Direction: Sebastian Brünger
Stage Design, Lighting: Marc Jungreithmeier, Mascha Mazur
Video: Marc Jungreitmeier

Tokyo Performance Staff
Dramaturge: Sebastian Breu
Associate Dramaturge: Ken Hagiwara-Wallentowitz
Localization: Shuichi Fukazawa
Casting: Shun Ishizuka, Chika Onozuka
Statistics Advisor: Kazuyuki Nakamura
Direction Assistant: Kenjiro Otani

Music: Takuji Aoyagi
Sound: Kojima Keitaney Love + Tomohiko Gondo

Booklet Editing: Yuki Kageyama
Booklet Design: Kohei Nakazawa (ASYL）
Production Assistant: Chika Onozuka

In co-operation with Goethe-Institut
Endorsed by the Federal Republic of Germany

Produced by Festival/Tokyo, Rimini Apparat
Presented by Festival/Tokyo