Essen/Hanover.
After the faecal attack on a critic, the pressure on Hanover’s ballet director Goecke increases. The State Theater still wants to comment today.
In the dog excrement attack by a ballet director on a German dance journalist, further details have become public. As reported, on the occasion of a premiere on Saturday, the head of ballet at the Staatstheater Hannover, Marco Goecke, smeared the critic Wiebke Hüster (including the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) with feces.
As the FAZ reported, this was preceded by a (first) encounter between Hüster and Goecke during the first break of the premiere. According to the report, Goecke “angry” stood in the way of the critic and asked her what she was “looking for here”. According to FAZ Goecke, the dance journalist threatened to be “banned from the house” and accused her of being partly to blame for the collapse in the number of subscribers at his house.
Dachshund owner Goecke smeared Wiebke Hüster with feces during the premiere break
Goecke is said to have grabbed a bag containing feces and rubbed Wiebke Hüster’s face with it (Editor’s note: Goecke has owned a dachshund for many years, which he always carries with him. The animal is called Gustav). Then Goecke went away. “When I felt what he was doing, I screamed,” said Hüster. The crying critic was then escorted to a washroom by the theater’s press officer. Hüster then went to the police to file a complaint.
The feuilleton of the FAZ rated “the humiliating act beyond the offense of bodily harm as an attempt to intimidate our free, critical view of art”.
The reason for the attack may have been a sharp slating in the FAZ
The theater confirmed the attack and also the assumption that it was dog excrement. Hüster immediately apologized. On the part of Goecke, however, there has been no personal reaction to the incident up to now. Goecke is considered an influential artist in dance circles. He was only awarded the German Dance Prize in Essen in 2022.
The FAZ suspects that a critical report by Wiebke Hüster about one of Goecke’s last works for the Nederlands Dans Theater was the reason for the attack.
After researching our reaction, however, there should still be consequences in Goecke’s personnel today because of the attack. The State Theater wants to comment in the afternoon.
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