“a fiercely beautiful historical pageant of music, movement and shadow play”
—The New York Times
“Today’s art world is powerfully drawn to Kentridge because he’s mastered one of our period’s greatest challenges: how to create an art of cultural authority, one that takes the moral measure of our time.”
—New York Magazine
William Kentridge is a remarkably versatile artist whose evocative vision combines the political with the poetic through artistic media as diverse as printmaking, drawing, painting, sculpting, and filmmaking. Dealing with subjects as sobering as apartheid, colonialism, and totalitarianism, his highly personal work is often imbued with lyrical undertones in his critical examination of aspects of his native South African society and the aftermath of apartheid.
The renowned artist synthesizes elements of his practice to conjure his grandest and most ambitious production to date, commissioned by the Armory. Kentridge works alongside long-time collaborator, Philip Miller—one of South Africa’s leading composers—whose powerful and evocative compositions offer a perfect complement to Kentridge’s feverishly imaginative work.
A play on the Ghanaian proverb, “the head and the load are the troubles of the neck,” the large-scale work expressively speaks to the nearly two million African porters and carriers used by the British, French, and Germans who bore the brunt of the casualties during the First World War in Africa and the historical significance of this story as yet left largely untold. This processional musical journey—as much an installation as a performance piece—melds performances by orchestra collective The Knights, and an international ensemble cast of singers, dancers, and performers accompanied by a chorus of mechanized gramophones alongside multiple film projections and shadow play to create a landscape of immense proportion and imagination that utilizes the vast sweep of the Wade Thompson Drill to upend standard notions of scale.
Artist Talk: The Head & the Load
Thursday, December 6 at 6:30pm
Buy Tickets — SOLD OUT!
Artist William Kentridge and his fellow collaborators Philip Miller and Thuthuka Sibisi discuss the political context of their latest work and the process behind mounting it in an unconventional space with Dr. Augustus Casely-Hayford, Director of the Smithsonian, National Museum of African Art.
Watch the live stream.
North American Premiere
Commissioned by Park Avenue Armory, 14–18 NOW:
WWI Centenary Commissions, Ruhrtriennale, and MASS MoCA
with additional support from Holland Festival.
CREATIVE TEAM
Concept and Director William Kentridge
Composer Philip Miller
Co-composer / Music Director Thuthuka Sibisi
Projection Design Catherine Meyburgh
Choreography Gregory Maqoma
Costume Design Greta Goiris
Set Design Sabine Theunissen
Lighting Design Urs Schönebaum
Sound Design Mark Grey
Video Editing and Compositing Janus Fouché / Žana Marović / Catherine Meyburgh
Associate Director Luc De Wit
Studio Technical Director Chris Waldo de Wet
Video Orchestrator Kim Gunning
Cinematography Duško Marović
Orchestration Michael Atkinson/Philip Miller
CREATED AND PERFORMED BY
ACTORS: Mncedisi Shabangu, Hamilton Dlamini, Nhlanhla Mahlangu, Luc De Wit
FEATURED VOCALISTS & PERFORMERS: Joanna Dudley, Nhlanhla Mahlangu, Ann Masina, Bham Ntabeni, Sipho Seroto, N`Faly Kouyate (kora), Mario Gotoh (viola, The Knights), Tlale Makhene (percussion) and Vincenzo Pasquariello (piano)
DANCERS: Gregory Maqoma, Julia Zenzie Burnham, Thulani Chauke, Xolani Dlamini, Nhlanhla Mahlangu
ENSEMBLE VOCALISTS: Mhlaba Buthelezi, Ayanda Eleki, Grace Magubane, Ncokwane Lydia Manyama, Tshegofatso Moeng, Mapule Moloi, Lindokuhle Thabede, Motho Oa Batho
With chamber orchestra THE KNIGHTS
Developed at MASS MoCA, North Adams, April-May 2018, and Kentridge Studios, Johannesburg 2017-2018.
For more information, visit theheadandtheload.com.
The Head & the Load is supported in part by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Jennifer and Jonathan Allan Soros, Daniel Clay Houghton, Sarah Billinghurst and the Howard and Sarah Solomon Foundation, Betsy and Edward Cohen, Art Dealers Association of America, and the Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts. The production is also supported in part by public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the city council.
Image: Photo by Stella Olivier
December 4–15, 2018
Premiere: Tuesday, December 4 at 7:00pm
Tuesday–Friday at 8:00pm
Saturday at 2:00pm & 8:00pm
Sunday at 2:00pm & 7:00pm
Tickets start at $40
Wade Thompson Drill Hall
View the seating chart.
Running time is approximately 1 hour and 25 minutes with no intermission.
Standby Tickets:
There is an in-person standby list for full price tickets one hour prior to the performance start time. Patrons will leave their names on the standby list in the order that they arrive. Names will be called from the standby list if any tickets become available. Please note that there is no guaranteed availability of standby tickets.
2018 Season Sponsors:
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