The director of one of Germany’s leading ballet companies has been suspended from his post for attacking a critic of the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) rubbing dog poop on his face, according to the report of the journalist and the newspaper. Marco Goecke, who directed the dance company of the Hannover Opera until Monday, faced criticism during a performance after it published a negative opinion of another of his works. According to the newspaper account, he took advantage of the intermission to confront Wiebke Hüster. He first scolded her for the criticism and then opened a bag and rubbed the contents, her dog’s excrement, all over her face.
The Hannover Opera has announced this Monday that it is suspending Goecke “with immediate effect” and that it is also prohibiting him from entering the institution “in order to protect the ballet and the theater from any other incident.” The Police are investigating what happened after the journalist filed a complaint at a police station in the city, in the north of the country.
The “unpleasant incident”, as described by the FAZ, occurred on Saturday afternoon, during the premiere of the ballet Faith Love Hope at the Hannover Opera. During the break, the chief choreographer and director of the ballet went to look for the critic, who did not know him personally, in the lobby of the building. He first asked him what he was doing at the premiere. Later he threatened her with “forbidding her entry” to the opera and accused her of being responsible for the cancellations of subscriptions. Finally, he took out a bag containing animal excrement, rubbed the contents all over her face, and left without being stopped. The newspaper describes what happened as a “humiliating physical attack” and an attempt to curtail “the freedom of art criticism.”
The article that angered Goecke is a criticism published on the same Saturday about the piece in the dutch mountains, one of the choreographies he created for the Nederlands Dans Theater, the national dance company of the Netherlands, which is currently touring various theaters in the country. “Watching it, one feels alternately mad and bored to death,” Hüster wrote of the performance.
According to the critic’s account, Goecke, who was with his dog at the time of the attack, took the bag by surprise from one of his pockets. “When I realized what I had done, I started screaming,” he recounted. The theater press spokeswoman helped her clean herself in the bathroom and then accompanied her to the police station where she filed the complaint, which is being investigated as an alleged assault. The journalist assures that the choreographer had prepared the attack and that it was not the product of an outburst.
“She also gave me shit for years”
Far from apologizing, Goecke has given an interview on Tuesday to NDR television in which he assures that the critics have also “thrown shit” at him for years. “When you have public exposure and see your work stained by a journalist for years, there will be those who say that it is the price of being a public figure. But I have a different opinion”, says a very calm Goecke sitting on what looks like a park bench in Hannover.
“I know that 99% of the dance professionals in this country have been extremely hurt by this woman for years,” he adds, covered in sunglasses, as in many of his promotional photos. There is only one moment in which he seems to regret something, when he says that “perhaps the forms were not the most appropriate”. He acknowledges having resorted to something that is not well regarded and assures: “I had never done anything like this and in a way I surprised myself.”
Goecke, 50, received the national dance award in Germany last year. He is one of the best-known choreographers in the country and has created more than 90 choreographies in more than 20 years of activity. His works are found in the repertoire of companies around the world, such as the Paris Opera Ballet, the National Ballet of Canada or the Monte Carlo Ballets. Director of the Hannover Ballet Company since 2019, he is known for always carrying his dachshund, named Gustav. On his Instagram account there are numerous photos of the animal, which according to the newspaper Bild, has come to accompany him to a dinner with Carolina de Monaco, apparently fond of this breed of dogs.
“We contacted the journalist immediately after the incident and apologized to her personally and publicly,” Hannover Opera director Laura Berman said on Sunday. She added that the case was going to be studied and this Monday the institution decided to expel the choreographer. Frank Rieger, president of the German Association of Lower Saxony Journalists, described what happened as an “attack on press freedom.”
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