Marco Goecke

Marco Goecke (born 12 April 1972) is a German choreographer.

Goecke was born 12 April 1972 in Wuppertal, Germany.

His father worked in an office at a factory and his mother as a secretary.

He has an older sister.

Goecke began ballet training in 1988.

He studied at the Ballet Academy Cologne, the Tanzinstitut Heinz-Bosl-Stiftung in Munich, and from 1989 to 1995 at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague.

In 1997, Goecke began dancing professionally with Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, then at the ballet of Hagen Theatre.

In 2000, he made his choreographic debut with a piece entitled Loch, for Hagen Theatre.

In 2004 he was invited by Pina Bausch to present his 2003 Blushing and 2004 Mopey at the Tanztheater festival.

In 2005 Goecke became the choreographer in residence at the Stuttgart Ballet.

His 2006 narrative choreography of Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker was filmed for ZDFtheaterkanal.

In 2008 he was named resident choreographer at in Rotterdam.

In 2013, he was an appointed associate choreographer at the Nederlands Dans Theater.

Goecke's Nijinsky (2016) was called out by the 2022 Deutscher Tanzpreis jury as a milestone in his career.

His In the Dutch Mountains (2023) was about his relationship with the Netherlands, where he studied; it was partially inspired by the 1984 novel In the Mountains of the Netherlands by Cees Noteboom and the 1987 song of the same name by the Nits.

On 12 February 2023, Goecke smeared his dog's feces on the face of Wiebke Hüster, a dance critic whose mostly-negative review of the Nederlands Dans Theater premiere of his work In the Dutch Mountains had appeared in that day's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

He confronted Hüster during the intermission of a show including one of his works at the Hanover State Ballet, telling her that her piece had caused people to cancel their season tickets, and threatening to ban her from the premises.

He then pulled out a bag of feces and smeared them on her face.

Goecke said the review had angered him, and that Hüster had written only two positive pieces about his work in the twenty years she'd been covering it.

He said that critics should not write in "a personal and hateful way".

He said "I apologize for the fact I finally blew my top, but I also ask for a certain understanding at least for the reasons why this happened."

He said he hoped to start a debate on what art critics should be allowed to say in their reviews.

In the wake of the incident Goecke was charged with assault.

In 2018, he became the resident choreographer at Stuttgart's Gauthier Dance.

He was the director of Hanover State Ballet between 2019 and 2023, and had also held positions at Stuttgart Ballet,, Nederlands Dans Theater and Gauthier Dance.

He had additionally choreographed works for Paris Opera Ballet, Berlin State Ballet, Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo and Vienna State Ballet, among others.

Die Welt Manuel Brug called him "the most important choreographer in Germany."

In February 2023, after an incident in which he smeared dog feces on the face of a dance critic who had reviewed him negatively, he was removed from his position in Hanover.

In 2019, he was named the director of Hanover State Ballet, the ballet of Staatsoper Hannover.

Goecke was described as "the most important choreographer in Germany."

As of 2023 he has created more than 60 works, some of which are in the repertoires of the Paris Opera Ballet, Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, the National Ballet of Canada, Berlin State Ballet, Vienna State Ballet, and Ballett Zürich.

Most of his works are less than 30 minutes in length.

Goecke's work is noted for its focus on the upper body; costuming is typically black trousers with taupe tops on the women and bare chests for men.

Movement is primarily by the arms, hands, and torso and described as fluttering, twitching, shaking, spasming, trembling, with great rapidity and precision.

The movements in his pieces are often described as making little sense and seemingly chosen only to be ugly or different.

Goecke's sets are typically dimly lit.

He often includes items spread on or falling onto the stage or being tossed by dancers such as feathers, rose petals, balloons, or dead leaves or flour.

Costumes are sometimes trimmed with items that move, such as fringes, or make sounds, such as walnuts.

The dancers also create intentional sounds by pattering their feet or sometimes shrieking or quacking.

Musical choices are often diverse within a piece and are chosen for mood.