The faecal attack by the head of ballet at the Staatstheater Hannover has consequences: the employer reacts immediately and suspends the director after his attack on a critic. In social media, however, he is not very insightful and blames the victim.
The ballet director of the Hanover State Theater, Marco Goecke, has been suspended after a dog excrement attack on a journalist. The State Theater in Hanover announced that he had caused massive damage to the State Opera and the State Ballet. “Therefore, the theater management is suspending him with immediate effect and banning him from the house until further notice in order to protect the ballet ensemble and state theater from further damage.”
Goecke was asked to apologize comprehensively in the next few days and to explain to the theater management before informing about further steps, the theater said. On Saturday evening at the premiere of the ballet evening “Faith – Love – Hope”, the ballet director smeared the critic of the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”, Wiebke Hüster, with dog excrement in the foyer of the opera house. He had previously accused her of having canceled ballet subscriptions because of her negative personal reviews. The journalist filed a complaint. Investigations into simple bodily harm and insult had been started, said a spokeswoman for the Hanover police department.
The director of the State Opera, Laura Berman, said: “We contacted Wiebke Hüster immediately after the incident and apologized to her personally and publicly.” The Hanover State Opera is an open place of respectful cooperation and exchange. “And we very much regret that our audience was disturbed by this incident,” added the director.
After the dog excrement attack became known, several politicians, among others, called for the immediate dismissal of the ballet director. “It’s not just about the future of Marco Goecke, but also about the future of the more than 30-strong ballet ensemble that came to Hanover to work with Marco Goecke,” explained the administrative director of the Staatstheater, Jürgen Braasch. “The theater management also has a duty of care towards every member of the ensemble.”
“The behavior is completely unacceptable and the attack is disgusting,” said Lower Saxony’s Culture Minister Falko Mohrs. “We will discuss further consequences with the state theater,” emphasized the SPD politician. “As the chairman of the supervisory board, I express my regrets to the journalist Wiebke Hüster and apologize.”
Goecke himself could not initially be reached for comment. On Instagram, however, Goecke commented on numerous comments that showed understanding for his reaction or criticized him for the action. Goecke wrote in an answer to a comment that criticism is part of the business: “No!! It’s not part of it! Not in this way! I’ve been working for 25 years and I don’t care about bad reviews!! But there are limits! That would will not put up with anyone who has a business.”
The 50-year-old, who was born in Wuppertal, has an international reputation and has received numerous awards for his productions, most recently the German Dance Prize in 2022. The choreographer, who always wears sunglasses, often has his dachshund Gustav with him in a bag at the opera house in Hanover.
Critic Wiebke Hüster said on Sunday that she reacted very calmly to Goecke’s allegations on Saturday. Suddenly he pulled a plastic bag with dog feces out of his pocket and rubbed it in her face with the open side. “When I felt what he did, I screamed,” said Hüster. She was in shock and cried. An employee of the theater helped her to clean herself in the manager’s washroom.
