100% Vancouver was a surprise. It shouldn’t have been — any mix of statistics and personal stories is a potent combination (for me)! The premise: 100 ordinary citizens are cast according to Vancouver’s demographic mix (sex, age, ethnicity, language, residential neighborhood), each person representing roughly 1% of the population.  These 100 people come together on stage to ask and answer questions en masse about their individual identities: all sorts of questions, from origins (“We were born in Vancouver” had about 20% clustered under the “Me” sign) to behaviour (“We recycle” saw one brave, if environmentally unsound, man standing on the “Not Me” side of the stage) and beliefs (“We believe in God.”). Of course the statistics appealed to me, but the surprising part was how much it moved me, too.  After all, census data is powerful and useful — but how well are statistics able to tell the stories of real people? But here they were, not just statistics, but people who had lived those numbers. It’s hard not to be moved by vulnerability.  A few of the people on stage told small, charming, and often surprising stories of their lives, ones that made a segue into yet another question for the masses. But I also really loved the stories that were merely implied in the patterns that people formed. You could follow the movements of a specific person through a series of 4 or 5 questions, and get a familiar feeling about the picture of “who” they are.  Or you could start to wonder what the sweet looking middle-aged lady did to land herself in the group of people who have committed violence against another person. The scenes that brought emotions closest to the surface were ones that asked the really intimate questions, like life-shaping experiences that never get talked about: (“We have experienced war”, “We have been in prison”), and those answers that repeated all those familiar patterns that you wish weren’t true — the ones that represent, I think, structural damage.  Overrepresentation of colour in answers about jail, violence, starting over.   Youth contemplating suicide.  Family structures (okay technically, 100% of married people on stage moved under the “Me” sign when asked who among them were in love. 100%? Shenanigans.). Of course hard, unsafe questions were the ones which moved me closer to the edge of my seat while we waited intently for bodies to part in answer.  (“We have been lying from the start” netted not a small crowd of “Me“s).  There was a general lightheartedness to the evening, all told.  Lots of questions and stories told by all “kinds” of people, and lots of good-natured recognition of selves in others.  I suppose this was the lesson here — how intensely human it is to want to identify with the folks on stage. 

100% Vancouver was a surprise. It shouldn’t have been — any mix of statistics and personal stories is a potent combination (for me)!

The premise: 100 ordinary citizens are cast according to Vancouver’s demographic mix (sex, age, ethnicity, language, residential neighborhood), each person representing roughly 1% of the population. 

Image from the Georgia Straight

These 100 people come together on stage to ask and answer questions en masse about their individual identities: all sorts of questions, from origins (“We were born in Vancouver” had about 20% clustered under the “Me” sign) to behaviour (“We recycle” saw one brave, if environmentally unsound, man standing on the “Not Me” side of the stage) and beliefs (“We believe in God.”).

Of course the statistics appealed to me, but the surprising part was how much it moved me, too.  After all, census data is powerful and useful — but how well are statistics able to tell the stories of real people? But here they were, not just statistics, but people who had lived those numbers. It’s hard not to be moved by vulnerability. 

A few of the people on stage told small, charming, and often surprising stories of their lives, ones that made a segue into yet another question for the masses.

But I also really loved the stories that were merely implied in the patterns that people formed. You could follow the movements of a specific person through a series of 4 or 5 questions, and get a familiar feeling about the picture of “who” they are.  Or you could start to wonder what the sweet looking middle-aged lady did to land herself in the group of people who have committed violence against another person.

The scenes that brought emotions closest to the surface were ones that asked the really intimate questions, like life-shaping experiences that never get talked about: (“We have experienced war”, “We have been in prison”), and those answers that repeated all those familiar patterns that you wish weren’t true — the ones that represent, I think, structural damage.  Overrepresentation of colour in answers about jail, violence, starting over.   Youth contemplating suicide.  Family structures (okay technically, 100% of married people on stage moved under the “Me” sign when asked who among them were in love. 100%? Shenanigans.).

Of course hard, unsafe questions were the ones which moved me closer to the edge of my seat while we waited intently for bodies to part in answer.  (“We have been lying from the start” netted not a small crowd of “Me“s). 

There was a general lightheartedness to the evening, all told.  Lots of questions and stories told by all “kinds” of people, and lots of good-natured recognition of selves in others.  I suppose this was the lesson here — how intensely human it is to want to identify with the folks on stage.