BERLIN — A efficiency inside a Catholic cathedral in Germany earlier this month that featured uncooked, plucked chickens wrapped in diapers onstage — and the nation’s president and the native archbishop within the viewers — has prompted the church and municipal leaders to apologize that the present “damage non secular emotions.”
The present, “Westphalia Aspect Story,” was a part of a Could 15 celebration to mark the 1,250th anniversary of Westphalia, a area in northwestern Germany.
Video footage exhibits one girl and two shirtless males singing “Fleisch ist Fleisch” (“Meat is meat”) — apparently spoofing Austrian band Opus’ 1984 pop tune “Stay is Life” — with scythes and dancing with the lifeless chickens on a stage in entrance of Paderborn Cathedral’s altar.
Efficiency firm bodytalk mentioned in an announcement Friday that the present featured work-in-progress excerpts from “Westphalia Aspect Story” — which references the American musical “West Aspect Story.”
The completed present, which can premiere in September, is meant to be a part of the 1,250th anniversary’s cultural programming.
“It was not meant to be a spoof in any respect,” bodytalk cofounder Rolf Baumgart mentioned in an e-mail to The Related Press. “As Westphalia is a rural dominated area with a turbulent historical past our analysis was centered on that.”
The spectacle additionally prompted a web-based petition — signed by greater than 22,000 individuals by Friday afternoon — that asks Paderborn Archbishop Udo Bentz for a private apology, in addition to penance. The signers additionally need him to reconsecrate the cathedral after it was “desecrated by this efficiency.”
In an announcement posted on-line to the cathedral’s web site greater than every week after the efficiency, the Regional Affiliation of Westphalia-Lippe and the church’s management mentioned that the content material of the efficiency wasn’t identified to the organizers or the venue.
The cathedral, the assertion mentioned, is commonly host to cultural occasions and has begun an inner assessment. Additionally they promised to extra rigorously vet proposed occasions sooner or later.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s workplace did not instantly return a request for touch upon Friday.
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Philipp Jenne contributed to this report from Vienna.
