The Body as Medium, The Body as Archive

After two large group pieces (ENSEMBLE 2023 and ATTEMPTS OF TOGETHERNESS 2025), in which Jenny Beyer explored collective decision-making processes, she is now turning her focus to a solo. In this solo, she dances herself, while her counterpart – her grandfather Walter "Ali" Beyer, who passed away in 2004 – remains absent.

Walter Beyer grew up in a working-class, communist milieu in Hamburg and, after the National Socialists came to power, joined the resistance, among other things by distributing leaflets. He was imprisoned, deported to labor camps, and survived only through the help of fellow prisoners. His sisters and many friends were also arrested, some murdered.

Jenny Beyer’s solo unfolds on two levels: a documentary one, addressing the memory of the Nazi era and its relevance today, and a personal one, reflecting on the artist’s relationship with her grandfather. Her body becomes a medium of remembrance and a platform for engaging with her grandfather’s history.

In the solo “Zurück zu Ali” (working title), Jenny Beyer first enters a process of research and reflection. The aim is to reconstruct her grandfather’s story both historically and biographically. In a second step, she will confront the question of how to bring this very personal story onto the stage. In doing so, she asks herself fundamental questions: What relevance does her grandfather’s resistance biography hold for the present day? How can the stage be used as a place of knowledge transmission? And what role does her personal relationship to him play – can she feel pride in him, even though she herself contributed nothing to his resistance?

“The questions underlying the solo are: What about Grandpa Ali’s story is worth telling? What do I want to pass on, and why? Why don’t I tell the story of my other grandfather, who was a Nazi – or do I do that automatically? How does the moment of performance become an act of remembering resistance in National Socialist Germany? What stories emerge when biographical testimonies (of a more documentary nature) intersect with personal memories? Do we share history, or do we rather share personal recollections?”

Premiere

25. March 2026 | Kampnagel Hamburg

Further performances
26.-28. March 2023 | Kampnagel Hamburg
   

ZURÜCK ZU ALI is a production by Jenny Beyer in co-production with Kampnagel Hamburg, funded by the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg as part of Shared Leadership in Dance (SLiD). SLiD is a commitment to collaboration as well as to the sharing of knowledge, resources, and work in dance, initiated by choreographers Jenny Beyer, Antje Pfundtner in Gesellschaft (APiG), Ursina Tossi, and their teams.