andcompany&Co. - Black Bismarck (2013)
Channel: andcompanyandco
Date: 2014-02-04

Theater-Performance by andcompany&Co.

A spectre is haunting Europe -- the spectre of colonialism. In 1884/85, Otto von Bismarck invited the leaders of old Europe to the so-called "Berlin-Conference" into his residence (Reichskanzlerpalais) in order to divide Africa among them. The date of the conference also marks the beginning of Germany's thirty-year long period of colonial rule in the region of today's Togo, Cameroon, Namibia, Tanzania, Burundi and Ruanda.

The Berlin-based "ghostbusters" of andcompany&Co. began to search for colonial ghosts: an area of allotment gardens, several rows of streets, even a whole city district and a well-known supermarket chain are still being haunted today -- nearly 100 years after the official end of the German colonial period. An underground station near the "Reichskanzlerpalais" seems to be the entrance to the underworld. Ruler Bismarck, who did not come to peace in Friedrichsruh, stalks around as "the white man": White man, what now?