Davos State of the World /
Weltzustand Davos
(State 4)

By Helgard Haug / Stefan Kaegi

State 1-4
With their series State 1–4, Rimini Protokoll set out to explore fields outside of what can be organized and controlled by the nation-state today. Rimini Protokoll look back at the essence of the powers whose separation was once intended to form the essential mechanism for monitoring state structures. To what extent are these powers still able to regulate the decisive impetuses for change faced by societies?

Davos State of the World / Weltzustand Davos (State 4)

After Top Secret International (State 1) about global intelligence services, Society under Construction / Gesellschaftsmodell Großbaustelle (State 2) about mega-construction sites as a model for the current social structure and Dreaming Collectives. Tapping Sheep / Träumende Kollektive. Tastende Schafe (State 3) where the importance of digital space for democratic processes is explored, the final part of the tetralogy uses the example of the World Economic Forum in Davos to look at a series of recurring, privately organized, global meetings of the world’s elite who, in their intense and select gatherings, aim to control the fates of the future as well as relationships of ownership and power.

Once every year, those in political power meet with the CEOs of the most important corporations in the small town of Davos in the Swiss Alps for the World Economic Forum (WEF). The forum is “committed to improving the state of the world.” However, participation in this elitist annual meeting – sponsored and organized by a private foundation – is only possible on invitation and after payment of a hefty conference fee. Sealed off politically and militarily and observed by countless journalists, this spectacle of the elites takes place outside of any state or civil society control or regulation.

This examination is set at the Schauspielhaus Zürich, not far from the Zürich Kloten Airport, which, during the World Economic Forum, becomes the parking lot of the private jets of the VIPs who take helicopters from here to Davos.

A production by Rimini Protokoll and the Schauspielhaus Zürich as part of 100 Years of Now.

Concept, script, direction: Helgard Haug, Stefan Kaegi
Stage: Dominic Huber
Music: Tomek Kolczynski
Video: Mikko Gaestel
Dramaturgy: Imanuel Schipper, Karolin Trachte
With: Ganga Jey Aratnam, Otto Brändli, Hans Peter Michel, Cécile Molinier, Sofia Sharkova

Weltzustand Davos (State 4) is part of the series State 1-4, a cooperation between Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Münchner Kammerspiele, Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus, Staatsschauspiel Dresden, Schauspielhaus Zürich, and Rimini Apparat, as part of 100 Years of Now, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media due to a ruling of the German Bundestag. State 1 was co-initiated by the Goethe-Institut.