Elizabeth Ward’s performative intervention at the Jahn-Denkmal reenacts and challenges some of the ambivalences surrounding the father of German gymnastics through a score of movements for audience participation based on records of the monument’s 1902 dedication ceremony and an English translation of Friedrich Ludwig Jahn’s writings from 1828. Ward delves into Jahn’s system of codifying basic human movements such as walking, running, skipping, and balancing, and makes it more accessible to audiences with recent experiences of physical education. Probing the point where the exhilaration of movement meets its authoritarian control, Ward’s performance draws attention to the dangerous and toxic ideals of nationalism that the monument is meant to symbolize.

Elizabeth Ward (1977, Detroit) is a choreographer and performer. Her work references ballet without being ballet and researches its potential as an emancipatory way of raising consciousness in anti-fascist struggles, often in collaboration with other artists. Ward lives in Vienna.