He Smeared Dog Poop on a Critic's Face, Is Out a Job

UPDATE Feb 20, 2023 1:00 AM CST

A German ballet director has lost his job after doing what he terms "truly an awful thing": smearing his dog's feces on the face of a dance critic. Marco Goecke, 50, on Thursday lost his job with the Hanover State Opera, though the opera house will continue to stage his "incomparable" work, per its artistic director. Adds Laura Berman, "I do not believe in cancel culture." The Nederlands Dans Theater appears even more forgiving, saying Goecke will remain on as associate choreographer. Goecke tells the New York Times he'd like there to be a larger conversation about what should be permissible in arts criticism, noting Wiebke Hüster had only reviewed him favorably twice in his entire career. Hüster doesn't plan to ever review him again though. "He is not that relevant," she says.

Feb 13, 2023 11:58 AM CST

If you don't have anything nice to say, you might just get dog poop smeared on your face. Such was the fate of a German newspaper critic over the weekend who faced the wrath of the Hanover State Opera's ballet director, Marco Goecke, after she wrote in a review that "one alternates between a state of feeling insane and being killed by boredom" by his recent ballet production in the Hague. Goecke apparently took offense to Wiebke Hüster's sentiments, and as the Guardian reports, confronted her verbally at intermission on Sunday night in Hanover, accusing her of driving away season-ticket holders.

As the AP reports, Goecke allegedly came prepared: He produced a bag of dog poop and smeared its contents on Hüster's face. The Guardian notes that Goecke has a well-known pet dachshund, Gustav, who had just produced the contents of the bag Goecke pulled from his pocket, recounted Hüster. "With the open side of the bag, he rubbed the dog excrement in my face. When I felt what he had done, I screamed."

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Reaction was pretty swift: Hüster got herself cleaned off and to a police station, where she filed charges. The opera house apologized, and announced on Monday that Goecke was suspended and banned from the opera house effective immediately. He has been given a couple of days to apologize "comprehensively," per the AP, while the opera house figures out any further steps. (More dog poop stories.)