German ballet choreographer smears critic with dog excrement: Reports

BERLIN – Arts critics are used to trashing sub-par performances with negative reviews, but they are rarely on the receiving end of an all-too-literal smear campaign.

This weekend though, the chief choreographer of Hanover State Opera smeared the face of a dance critic with dog excrement after she gave a negative review of his latest show, German newspapers wrote.

Wiebke Huster, a dance critic for German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), was attending the premiere on Saturday (Feb 11) of the ballet Glaube - Liebe - Hoffnung (Faith - Love - Hope) at the Hanover State Opera.

During the interval, Marco Goecke, one of the production's choreographers, confronted Huster in the theatre's crowded foyer and smeared her face with dog excrement, newspapers said.

Goecke, who is Hanover State Ballet's chief choreographer and director, threatened to ban Huster from the theatre before removing a bag filled with the faeces and wiping its contents in Huster's face, FAZ reported on Sunday.

The exchange followed Huster's negative review published in the FAZ on Saturday of Goecke's new show, In The Dutch Mountains.

Huster wrote that watching the show, which recently opened at Nederlands Dans Theatre in The Hague, was like being "alternately driven mad and killed by boredom".

The opera house apologised for the episode in a statement, adding that it was checking on 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."

The opera house couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

FAZ said that a police investigation has been launched, also suggesting that Huster'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.

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