Smear campaign: Furious German ballet choreographer wipes dog faeces over critic’s face after she compared show to being ‘alternately driven mad and killed by boredom’
- Marco Goecke smeared dog faeces into dance critic Wiebke Hüster’s face
- Incident happened after Hüster wrote a negative review about Goecke’s show
- READ MORE: The night Royal Ballet star danced herself off her feet in Swan Lake
A furious German ballet choreographer smeared dog faeces over a critic’s face after she had compared his show to being ‘alternately driven mad and killed by boredom’ in a scathing review.
Marco Goecke, one of the choreographers of the ballett ‘Glaube – Liebe -Hoffnung’ (Faith – Love – Hope), confronted journalist Wiebke Hüster in the Hanover State Opera’s crowded foyer on Saturday, German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) said.
Hüster, a dance critic for the newspaper, was attending the premiere of the ballet on Saturday and during the interval, Goecke smeared her face with dog excrement.
Goecke, who is Hanover State Ballet’s chief choreographer and director, threatened to ban Hüster from the theatre before removing a bag filled with the faeces and wiping its contents in Hüster’s face, FAZ reported on Sunday.
The exchange followed Hüster’s negative review of Goecke’s new show ‘In the Dutch Mountains’, which was published in the FAZ on Saturday, and said that watching the show, which recently opened at Nederlands Dans Theater in The Hague, was like being ‘alternately driven mad and killed by boredom’.
Marco Goecke, one of the choreographers of the ballett ‘Glaube – Liebe -Hoffnung’ (Faith – Love – Hope), confronted journalist Wiebke Hüster in the Hanover State Opera’s crowded foyer on Saturday
Hüster, a dance critic for the newspaper, was attending the premiere of the ballet on Saturday and during the interval, Goecke smeared her face with dog excrement
The incident was subsequently reported by the 57-year-old critic, a police spokeswoman said.
Samples of the ‘dog feces’ had not been secured by authorities, who would have to rely on eyewitness testimony as they investigated the alleged assault, the spokeswoman said.
The opera house apologised for the episode in a statement, adding that it was checking which steps to take against the director in accordance with labour law. It did not give details of what happened.
‘We contacted the journalist immediately after the incident and apologised to her personally and also publicly,’ Laura Berman, the opera house’s artistic director, said in a statement.
‘We very much regret that our audience has been disturbed by this incident.’
The opera house has since suspended ballett director Goecke effective immediately and banned him from the opera house until further notice.
In a statement the opera house said that Goecke’s ‘impulsive behaviour’ was going against their code of conduct and left the audience, staff members and the general public ‘extremely unsettled’.
They added that his behaviour has harmed the ballett house’s reputation.
FAZ suggested that Hüster’s public shaming was worrying news for the arts world.
‘This humiliating incident is not only an act of bodily harm but also an attempt to intimidate our free, critical view of art,’ the newspaper said.
Goecke, ballet director at the Hanover theatre since 2019, was the 2022 recipient of the German Dance Prize.
The next performance of ‘Belief – Love – Hope’ in Hanover is scheduled for February 24, according to the opera house’s website.
In a statement the opera house said that Goecke’s ‘impulsive behaviour’ was going against their code of conduct and left the audience, staff members and the general public ‘extremely unsettled’
The opera house has since suspended ballett director Goecke effective immediately and banned him from the opera house until further notice
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