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. They randomly drew lines on a map and created borders which still exist today and are the cause for many political and military conflicts. 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: land-grab and kidnapping, scavenging of natural resources, forced labour, war and genocide were the consequences.

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”: an undead with an insatiable hunger for brain, who tries to save German literature from the “madness of political correctness”. White man, what now?

The international performance collective andcompany&Co. was founded in Frankfurt/Main in 2003. Founding members are theatre scientist, author and performer Alexander Karschnia, theatre maker and singer Nicola Nord, and musician and performer Sascha Sulimma. andcompany&Co. is conceived as an open network which new artists coming from various disciplines are constantly joining – among them are author and theatre director Joachim Robbrecht, visual artist Jan Brokof and musicians Reinier van Houdt and Simon Lenski.