William Kentridge's The Head & the Load tickets

Visionary South African artist William Kentridge returns to Cal Performances following two extraordinarily well-received previous visits (which featured Sibyl in 2023 and The Great Yes, The Great No in 2025) with a seminal work that chronicles—through dance, projection, speech, song, shadow play, costume, and music—the untold history of the more than two million Africans who labored, fought, and died during the First World War. The Head & the Load takes its name from a Ghanaian proverb, “The head and the load are the troubles of the neck,” and continues Kentridge’s exploration of history, language, and artistic and political movements through richly layered and inventive performance works. Praised as “a fiercely beautiful historical pageant” by the New York Times, Kentridge’s production unfolds on a massive stage, weaving together texts by anticolonial authors and Dada poets in multiple languages, with original music by Philip Miller and Thuthuka Sibisi that intermingles traditional African songs with quotes from WWI-era European music by Satie, Hindemith, and Schoenberg.