This South African artist’s haunting performance is a must-see of Miami Art Week

House lights dim, leaving only looming shadows and a few spotlit faces scattered deliberately across the dark 180-foot stage. There is no curtain to raise; the audience of 500 sits in chairs set directly on the Arsht Center stage, unfamiliarly close to both actors and one another. The cacophony begins.

William Kentridge’s “The Head and the Load” is the kind of rare, edgy theatrical experience you occasionally find at London’s National Theatre. Rarely, if ever, is it seen in Miami — a reason to grab whatever tickets you can for this weekend’s three remaining performances.

The story itself is tragically straightforward. During World War I, about 2 million Black Africans were conscripted by European forces as carriers to haul weapons, gear and personal items across the continent. Many, if not most, died. Their sacrifice has gone unrecognized; Kentridge himself says he knew little of the story until he began working on the piece. The title comes from a Ghanian proverb, “the head and the load are the troubles of the neck.”

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If the storyline is simplistic, the storytelling is as dizzyingly complex as the past itself. Kilted carriers march and whirl through arduous journeys while narcissistic military officers perch on towers high above the fray, shadow puppets in a colonial manipulation that benefited only government and industry.

Those familiar with Kentridge’s work will recognize the stark animated drawings for which the South African artist is so well known. Background projections morph to reveal images and phrases underscoring the disregard for human life and the glimmer of resolution that comes with this long-delayed recognition.

Like the images, sound and music — composed by Philip Miller and Thuthuka Sibisi — convey meaning through shape and tone. Gunfire staccato, mournful jazz and mellifluous operatic aria provide a soundtrack far more telling than any easy melody.

Sung or spoken, language — make that languages — are often incomprehensible, and intentionally so. Justifications for war, oppression and cruelty rarely make any true sense.

Bringing this larger-than-life pageant to Miami was, in itself, a heavy lift.

Miami-based Valerie Dillon loaned her New York townhouse for early workshops, peering with her children over the stairwell to peek in. She was so wowed by the completed show — “I had never seen art at this scale” — that she and husband Daniel Lewis partnered with the Roy Cockrum Foundation to provide a total of more than $1 million to bring the work, last performed in 2018, to Miami.

Getting the directors, essential crew and cast of more than 40 performers required more than 60 visas. Along with public performances, the cast has conducted 10 workshops around the region for more than 100 teachers, artists and creatives.

For public audiences, the result is a profound and sometimes confounding experience rich with metaphor. The final ambiguous scene leaves some audience members in tears and others buoyed by the resilience of the human spirit.

In either case, “The Head and the Load” brilliantly presents a graphic reminder that history is a piecemeal fabrication. What is recorded for posterity depends largely on who is telling the story and where he or she was sitting during the action.

‘The Head and the Load,’ by William Kentridge

Through Sunday

Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami

Tickets from $50 at arshtcenter.org.