A major work in Body's career is his opera "Alley", premiered at the 1998 New Zealand International Festival of the Arts. "Alley" is based on the life of Rewi Alley, a New Zealand-born writer, political activist, and member of the Communist Party of China who lived and taught in China from the late 1920s until his death in 1987. With a libretto co-written with Geoff Chapple, Alley's biographer, the opera featured Gansu folk singers Ji Zheng-Zhu and Li Gui-Zhou, Beijing's Huaxia Chamber Ensemble, and a small orchestra of New Zealand musicians. A last-minute funding cut left the opera in perilous straits, but an eleventh-hour fundraising effort by Body and Chapple secured its performance.