German critic says ballet director 'attacked her with dog's faeces'

2023-02-14

‘He took out this doggy poo bag and smeared it into my face’: German critic describes ‘panic’ when ballet director ‘attacked her with his dog Gustav’s faeces’ over a negative review – before he took a bow on stage ‘like nothing had happened’

Critic Wiebke Hüster told how Marco Goecke smeared dog faeces onto her face
Incident happened after Hüster wrote a negative review about Goecke’s show

A German ballet critic today told of how she was left in utter shock after a furious ballet director allegedly smeared his dog Gustav’s faeces over her face after she described one of his productions as ‘boring’ and ‘disjointed’.

Journalist Wiebke Hüster, 57, said Marco Goecke, director of Hanover State Opera’s ballet company, approached her during the interval of his show on Saturday night at the opera house and ‘blocked her way’ before accusing her of ‘writing badly’.

Hüster, a dance critic for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), said Goecke, 50, then produced a bag of dog faeces, which had been freshly produced by his Dachshund Gustav just minutes before, from his pocket and rubbed the excrement over her face in front of ‘shocked’ onlookers.

‘All of a sudden, without any warning, he just took out this doggy poo bag and smeared it into my face,’ Hüster told BBC Radio 4.

‘As he turned around and walked away, and as I realised what had happened I screamed. I was in panic, I was completely shocked, as were the people around me. They didn’t know what to do.’

Journalist Wiebke Hüster said Marco Goecke (pictured with Dachshund Gustav), director of Hanover State Opera’s ballet company, approached her during the interval of his show on Saturday night at the opera house and smeared his pet’s faeces on her face

Journalist Wiebke Hüster (pictured) said Marco Goecke attacked her verbally and physically on Saturday night

Hüster said she rushed to the toilets before leaving the Hanover Opera House to file a police report against Goecke, who is said to have taken a bow on the stage following the ballet performance ‘like nothing had happened’.

Goecke was said to be furious over Hüster’s scathing review, published in the FAZ just before his new show premiered on Saturday, of his production ‘In the Dutch Mountain’.

The journalist had compared the production, which recently opened at Nederlands Dans Theatre in The Hague, to being ‘alternately driven mad and killed by boredom’.

A furious Goecke approached Hüster in the crowded foyer of the Hanover Opera House during the interval of his production ‘Glaube – Liebe -Hoffnung’ (Faith – Love – Hope)’ and threatened to ban her from the house and accused her of being responsible for cancelling subscriptions in Hanover.

He allegedly verbally abused her before he attacked her with the dog faeces. Hüster left the Opera House and immediately reported the alleged assault to police.

‘It was bodily harm and an insult. Marco Goecke came to me in the first interval and he blocked my way,’ Hüster said. ‘He said I should get a house ban instead of being allowed to report on this evening.’

‘I said I was just doing my job and was there to review his performance,’ Hüster said, adding that Goecke had accused her of ‘always writing so badly.’

‘And then, all of a sudden, without any warning, it was so quick, he just took out this doggy poo bag and smeared it into my face.’

She told The Daily Beast: ‘He didn’t just throw it at me. He pulled out the bag with the open side of the bag and rubbed it in my face brutally, so the dog poop would stick in my face.

‘One moment we were still talking and the next moment his fist was in my face.’

Hüster said: ‘I was surrounded in this foyer by lots of people and they were watching this scene, and as he turned around and walked away, and as I realised what had happened I screamed.

‘I was in panic, I was completely shocked, as were the people around me. They didn’t know what to do. ‘

‘And then the next thing, somebody from the theatre came up to me and led me to a ladies room so that I could clean my face and I left the theatre and went to the police.’

Hüster said Goecke, 50, then produced a bag of dog faeces, which had been freshly produced by his Dachshund Gustav (pictured with Goecke) just minutes before, from his pocket and rubbed the excrement over her face in front of ‘shocked’ onlookers

Goecke was said to be furious over Hüster’s scathing review, published in the FAZ just before his new show premiered on Saturday, of his production ‘In the Dutch Mountain’ (pictured)

The opera house has since suspended ballet 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’

Hüster said that a woman who witnessed the incident told her in an email that she had tried to stop Goecke and get hold of him. ‘But somebody from the theatre actually came and led Marco Goecke to a separate room,’ Hüster said.

And showing no remorse, Goecke is said to have bowed at the end of the performance ‘as if nothing had happened’.

‘As colleagues have reported to me, he bowed at the end of the performance. He went onto the stage, he waved to the audience, he acted as if nothing had happened,’ Hüster said.

But Goecke is now being investigated by police and has been suspended from his post as chief choreographer and director and barred from the Hanover State Opera House.

Samples of the ‘dog faeces’ had not been secured by authorities, who would have to rely on eyewitness testimony as they investigated the alleged assault, a police spokeswoman said.

Hüster said she has received an outpouring of support since the alleged assault.

She said: ‘There is a wide response in the cultural arts world. People saying this is an act against freedom of the press. This should not have happened.

‘And in my 25-year-long career as a dance critic, nothing similar has ever happened to me nor to anyone else. So I like to consider this a singular act.’

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.’

They added that his behaviour has harmed the ballet house’s reputation.

The opera house demanded an apology from Goecke and an explanation before it will give information about further steps regarding the choreographer and ballet director.

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.

Hüster’s stinging review of Goecke’s new show ‘In the Dutch Mountains’

Wiebke Huster wrote on February 11 as a standfirst: ‘Ridden by a troll? At ‘In the Dutch Mountain’, Marco Goecke’s new ballet evening with the virtuoso Nederlands Dans Theater in Den Haag, the audience is alternately insane and killed by boredom.’

The critic mainly takes issue with the choreography of the piece, saying: ‘The problem is the syntactic meaninglessness of the abstract choreography, the theme of which is not the incessant re-starting.’

She ends on an equally scathing note, calling it a ‘disgrace and a cheek’: ‘The piece is like a radio that doesn’t get the right station.

‘It’s a disgrace and a cheek, and the choreographer has to be blamed for both, as the virtuosity and presence of the dancers at the Nederlands Dans Theater demand more.

‘The best abstract choreographies create an inner-worldly pull in which stage personalities really unfold and their movements and looks create a meaningful, dense web.

‘Only working on such intensity and communication could have saved this unfocused and disjointed piece.’

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