Freebie of the week: Some may think the connection between contemporary interpretative dance and beer isn’t explored nearly enough these days. Fortunately, Bay Area aerial dance artist/choreographer Amelia Rudolph and her troupe is doing something about it with a free performance Friday evening. In a production titled “Fermenting Hope,” set for 7 p.m. Friday at Faction Brewing in Alameda, Rudolph and her company of seven aerial dancers, ARMA (Amelia Rudolph Movement Arts) will perform a “vertical dance investigation about creativity, fermentation, and hope.” Rudolph has long been a force in the Bay Area arts/entertainment scene and is probably best known as the founder of Bandaloop, a groundbreaking company that created thematically oriented, site-specific aerial dance works. She’s still at it, now as the leader of ARMA. “Fermenting Hope” will be performed for free thanks to backing from the City of Alameda Public Art Program. More information is at Eventbrite.com.
Thinking big: William Kentridge returns to the Bay Area this weekend with another multi-disciplinary work that will likely be an unforgettable experience for those who take it in. As part of a Cal Performances extended residency, the 72-year-old South African artist is bringing his third work, titled “The Head & the Load,” to the East Bay, with this one being staged at Oakland’s Henry J. Kaiser Center for the Arts because it is a sizable production needing a sizable stage. Employing dance, theater, video, speech, music, shadow play, and more, Kentridge’s new work tells the little-known story of some 2 million African soldiers who fought in World War I. According to organizers, the title of the 90-minute production is taken from a Ghanaian saying, “The head and the load are the troubles of the neck.” Kentridge is known for the wide variety of his artwork – from sketchings and paintings to large-scale theater and opera productions – most of which harbor a distinctive style and approach with a tendency to focus on his South African homeland. Other creators in “The Head and the Load” include composer Philip Miller, choreographer Gregory Maqoma, and music director and co-composer Thuthuka Sibisi. Performances at the Kaiser Center are 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $45-$191; go to calperformances.org
Real reggae: As the talented singer-songwriter, playwright and storyteller Duane Forrest tells it, the origin of his acclaimed solo show “Bob Marley: How Reggae Changed the World,” transpired years ago in an Irish bar in Paris, where a patron – wearing fake dreads – asked him to play the classic Marley tune “Buffalo Soldier.” The hairpiece and other elements convinced Forrest that the man had no idea of the song’s significance or that it dealt with a regiment of Black American servicemen. Perhaps because of its addictive and seemingly simplistic rhythmic and melodic structures, reggae has long been misunderstood. Forrest’s show takes that on, performing a variety of reggae classics while discussing each song’s origin and meaning – both on a personal and sociological level. The solo production – described as both eye-opening and joyous – has won raves around the world and been a big hit at various Fringe festivals. Forrest is performing “Bob Marley” 7 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at Stanford University’s The Studio theater, as part of the Stanford Live performance series; tickets are $42.12-$64.80 and going fast. Go to live.stanford.edu.
A royal celebration in music: The Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale, the Bay Area ensemble devoted to the performance of early music in period-appropriate style, opens the 2026-27 season under music director Peter Whelan with a program inspired by a phenomenal event in ancient history. Alexander the Great of Macedon was a fresh-faced lad of 21 when he began his four-year conquest of Persia, accomplished when he overthrew King Darius III in 334 B.C. Alexander celebrated the victory with a huge banquet in Persepolis, immortalized centuries later in the 1697 dramatic ode “Alexander’s Feast” by poet John Dryden (and later mistakenly attributed to John Donne.) Composer George Frideric Handel first set it to music in 1736, but it’s his revised Dublin version from 1742, rewritten to accommodate the performers he had in Ireland at the time, that the Bay Area orchestra is bringing to life in its first U.S. hearing with a performance 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco. Performed more than two dozen times in Handel’s lifetime, it was one of the most popular oratorios of his career. It recounts the contributions of the musician Timotheus, whose performance for the conqueror brought him through a sea of emotions, ending with his enraged vow to destroy the city in revenge for the death of many of his soldiers. Soprano Sherezade Panthaki, mezzo-soprano Rachael Wilson and tenor James Way join the orchestra and chorus in the performance, which will repeat Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in Berkeley’s First Congregational Church. Tickets, $40-$125, are available at philharmonia.org or by calling 415-295-1900.
A new face at the podium: Making her first appearances with the San Francisco Symphony at this weekend’s concerts is Parisian-born Marie Jacquot. At the age of 36, she’s already chief conductor of the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen, was for the past three years the principal guest conductor of the Vienna Symphony. Just this year she began her tenure as principal conductor or the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne in Germany. She’s leading the San Francisco Symphony through its first performances of French composer Augusta Holmès’ 1883 symphonic poem “Andromède,” which summons up the Greek myth of the daughter of Cassiopeia and Cepheus. Interesting side note — Holmès had to contend with double-barreled prejudice in her working life. Since her parents were Irish, the French turned up their noses at her. Since she was a woman, her work was dismissed as having “excessive virility – a frequent fault with woman composers.” (That particular jibe came from fellow French composer Camille Saint-Saëns, possibly still smarting from her rejection of his marriage proposal.) Japanese violinist Sayaka Shoji next joins Jacquot and the orchestra as the soloist in performance of Ottorino Respighi’s “Concerto gregoriano.” The concerts conclude after intermission with the major work on the program — selections from Sergei Prokofiev’s immensely popular “Romeo and Juliet” ballet. Performance times are 7:30 p.m. Friday, Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday in San Francisco’s Davies Hall. Find tickets, $30-$185, at sfsymphony.org or call 415-864-6000.