A ballet producer allegedly smeared dog faeces over a critic’s face after she wrote a scathing review saying she’d been “killed by boredom” watching a performance.
Marco Goecke, 50, allegedly carried out the attack on reviewer Wiebke Hüster in the Hanover State Opera’s crowded foyer in Germany on Saturday, The Sun reports.
Hüster, a dance critic for the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) was attending the premiere of the ballet Glaube – Liebe – Hoffnung (Faith – Love – Hope), which Goecke had co-choreographed.
During the interval, it’s reported that Goecke, who carries his dachshund Gustav around in his bag, initially threatened to ban Hüster from the theatre.
He then removed a paper bag filled with faeces and allegedly smeared it on her face, FAZ reports.
The incident came after Hüster wrote a brutal critique of Goecke’s show In the Dutch Mountains, which was published by FAZ on Saturday.
The review claimed that watching the show, which had recently opened in The Hague’s Nederlands Dans Theatre, was like being “alternately driven mad and killed by boredom”.
A police spokeswoman said the incident had been reported by the 57-year-old critic.
She added that samples of the “dog faeces” had not been secured by the authorities, who would have to rely on eyewitness testimony as they carried out an investigation into the alleged assault.
The opera house issued a statement and apologised for the episode, adding it was checking which steps to take following the labour laws.
It did not give an account of what happened.
Laura Berman, the opera house’s artistic director said in a statement: “We contacted the journalist immediately after the incident and apologised to her personally and also publicly.
“We very much regret that our audience has been disturbed by this incident.”
The opera house has suspended with immediate effect Goecke, its chief choreographer and director, and also banned him from the venue until further notice.
It said in a statement Goecke’s alleged “impulsive behaviour” went against their code of conduct and left the audience, staff members and the general public “extremely unsettled”.
The opera house added his behaviour had harmed its reputation.
FAZ said the alleged attack was “an attempt to intimidate our free, critical view of art”.
Goecke has been the ballet director at the Hanover theatre since 2019 and won the German Dance Prize in 2022.
According to the opera house’s website, the next performance of Belief – Love – Hope in Hanover is set for February 24.
This article originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission
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