German ballet director suspended after feces attack

BERLIN (AP) — A German newspaper critic had animal feces smeared on her face by a ballet director in the city of Hannover after he apparently took offense at a review she wrote. The Hannover state opera house apologized for the incident and said Monday that it was suspending ballet director Marco Goecke with immediate effect. The daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported that a furious Goecke approached its dance critic during the interval of a premiere at Hannover’s opera house and asked what she was doing there. It said that Goecke, who apparently felt provoked by a recent review she wrote of a production he staged in The Hague, threatened to ban her and accused her of being responsible for people canceling season tickets.