"Fouled for years": ballet director explains his faecal attack in the State Opera

A scandal erupted in Hanover when Marco Goecke and a journalist met: the ballet director smeared dog feces on her face.

"Fouled for years": ballet director explains his faecal attack in the State Opera

A scandal erupted in Hanover when Marco Goecke and a journalist met: the ballet director smeared dog feces on her face. The 50-year-old later regrets the action itself and explains how it could have happened in the first place – but he continues to criticize the editor.

The ballet director of the Hanover State Opera, Marco Goecke, who was suspended after a dog excrement attack on a well-known newspaper critic, explained his actions with years of negative reports about his work. "There is a moment when I feel personally attacked," Goecke told Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR). The reviews are "bottom drawer". With regard to his attack, he also admitted that the "choice of means was certainly not great".

Goecke had previously been suspended from the state opera in the Lower Saxony capital with immediate effect and banned from entering the building after he confronted the journalist from the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" (FAZ) in the foyer at a ballet premiere and smeared dog feces on her face during an argument. She filed a complaint, the police are investigating, among other things, because of bodily harm.

He was "a little shocked about myself," added Goecke, referring to his attack on NDR. But he sees himself and his work "soiled" by those affected "for years". He is often told that this is a "price" that a public figure has to pay. But he had a different opinion "from a certain point". The reviews themselves are "at the level of a turd," added the artist in the interview. At the same time, he explained the dog excrement attack as a "coincidence" and "very unfortunate entanglements". During the confrontation he had a bag with his dog's legacies, which he actually only wanted to dispose of.

The background to Goecke's attack was therefore a criticism published just a few days earlier by the journalist about a choreography by Goecke that is currently being performed by the renowned Nederlandse Dans Theater. In the article, which can also be read on the Internet, among other things, she called the production a "disgrace and a cheek" and wrote that the viewers were "alternately insane and killed by boredom".

Parallel to the suspension, the State Opera von Goecke demanded an apology and also promised "further steps". With his "impulsive reaction" to the journalist, the chief choreographer and ballet director "violated all the principles of conduct of the Hanover State Opera", "personally deeply offended" those affected and "extremely unsettled" employees and the public," it said in a statement. He had "massively damaged" the State Opera.

The person concerned works for the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung", which was the first medium to make the events public at the weekend. The newspaper wrote of a "humiliating act" and a "crossing of boundaries" that revealed the "disturbed relationship between an artist and criticism". Accordingly, Goecke is said to have provoked himself with a review by the employee about the premiere in the Netherlands and also made the woman responsible for canceling subscriptions to the Hanover State Opera.

Goecke is an award-winning choreographer who works on many ballet stages at home and abroad. Since 2019, the 50-year-old has been ballet director of the Hanover State Ballet, which belongs to the State Opera there. According to the theater, he has already developed more than 60 choreographies in the course of his career, which are part of the repertoire of ensembles from Paris to Berlin to Zurich. Last year he received the German Dance Prize.