French priest gets death threats after pole dance show at church
- An arts group rented the building for 2 sold-out baroque music performances, which were described as ‘sexy’ by the local paper
- Letters received by the priest called for ‘decapitation’, saying ‘this is not a church, it’s a cabaret’; ‘you’re going to hell,’ was scrawled on some programmes
A French priest said on Tuesday he had received death threats after a sold-out pole dance performance in his church that the local paper called “sexy”.
Daniel Boessenbacher, the priest at the Protestant Saint-Guillaume Church in Strasbourg, eastern France, told AFP he had alerted police to the threats after receiving two anonymous letters.
“There is no doubt, this is about a show involving Stabat Mater and pole dancing,” he said.
A baroque music and performing arts association, Passions Croisees (Interwoven Passions), rented the church last week for two performances of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s lyrical sequence Stabat Mater, which they combined with dance and pole dance acts.
The Dernieres Nouvelles d’Alsace newspaper said the pole dancing by gymnast and former French pole dance champion Vincent Grobelny had been “skilful, athletic, graceful, impertinent and, some would say, sexy”, and had left the audience “gasping”.