100 % Oulu

The Whole City on Stage

A hundred citizens of Oulu take to the stage in 100 % Oulu, a theatre production that gives a tangible voice to the citizens. The performers are selected through a statistical chain reaction so that they represent the city’s population as comprehensively as possible – as if the whole city were on stage in miniature.

100 % City is the concept of Rimini Protokoll, a documentary theatre group founded in Berlin in 2000. The first performance took place in Berlin in 2008, and since then the group has produced its own versions in more than 35 cities around the world. 100 % Oulu is the first production of the concept in Finland.

The piece brings together one of the top names in European theatre and ordinary people from Oulu, who may lack any previous relationship with theatre. One hundred volunteer performers represent the city in ever-changing group portraits on a large, constantly evolving stage. They can be viewed by age, address, gender, political orientation, favourite pub, means of transport or sandwich preferences, and gradually a sea of different voices, the embodied fabric of the city, builds up on the stage.

The performance is a theatrical way of exploring the people of Oulu and Oulu of today. Also, the cast of 100 performers forms a community that would not have emerged anywhere else. Both people on stage and in the audience would have been unlikely to meet otherwise.

Oulu is the European Capital of Culture for the year 2026. 100 % Oulu is part of the Oulu2026 cultural programme and cultural climate change.

Rimini Protokoll

Rimini Protokoll is the most noted group in Europe in the field of documentary theatre. It was set up in Berlin in 2000 by Stefan Kaegi, Helgard Haug and Daniel Wetzel, theatre directors and graduates from the University of Giessen.

The first “100 % City” was staged in Berlin in 2008, and has since visited more than 35 cities, among them London, Paris, Marseille, Vienna, Cologne, Dresden, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Riga, Tokyo, Philadelphia, Sao Paolo and Melbourne. In each city Rimini Protokoll puts on a different show, which carries the city’s name in the Rimini Protokoll concept.

Rimini Protokoll has been awarded a host of prestigious European awards, among them the Faust theatre prize; the Europe Prize New Theatrical Realities, awarded for creative innovations; and the Silver Lion of the Venice Biennial of Performative Arts.