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“When you speak about Miriam Makeba in South Africa, it’s akin to referring about a sovereign,” remarks Alesandra Seutin. Referred to as Mama Africa, Makeba also associated in New York with jazz greats like prominent artists. Starting as a teenager dispatched to labor to support her family in Johannesburg, she later became a diplomat for the nation, then Guinea’s official delegate to the United Nations. An vocal campaigner against segregation, she was the wife to a activist. Her remarkable story and impact inspire the choreographer’s new production, the performance, set for its UK premiere.

The Fusion of Movement, Sound, and Narration

Mimi’s Shebeen merges movement, live music, and oral storytelling in a theatrical piece that isn’t a simple biography but utilizes her past, particularly her experience of banishment: after relocating to New York in the year, she was barred from South Africa for 30 years due to her opposition to segregation. Subsequently, she was excluded from the US after wedding Black Panther activist Stokely Carmichael. The performance resembles a ritual of remembrance, a deconstructed funeral – some praise, part celebration, part provocation – with the exceptional South African singer Tutu Puoane at the centre bringing Makeba’s songs to vibrant life.

Strength and elegance … the production.

In the country, a shebeen is an unofficial venue for locally made drinks and lively conversation, often managed by a shebeen queen. Makeba’s mother the matriarch was a shebeen queen who was detained for producing drinks without permission when Makeba was a newborn. Incapable of covering the penalty, Christina went to prison for half a year, bringing her infant with her, which is how Miriam’s eventful life started – just one of the details the choreographer learned when researching her story. “Numerous tales!” says she, when we meet in Brussels after a show. Seutin’s father is Belgian and she mainly grew up there before relocating to study and work in the UK, where she founded her company Vocab Dance. Her parent would perform Makeba’s songs, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when she was a child, and move along in the living room.

Songs of freedom … the artist performs at the venue in 1988.

A decade ago, Seutin’s mother had the illness and was in hospital in the city. “I stopped working for three months to look after her and she was always requesting the singer. It delighted her when we were performing as one,” she remembers. “There was ample time to kill at the hospital so I started researching.” In addition to learning of her victorious homecoming to South Africa in the year, after the release of Nelson Mandela (whom she had met when he was a legal professional in the 1950s), she discovered that she had been a someone who overcame illness in her youth, that Makeba’s daughter Bongi died in childbirth in 1985, and that due to her banishment she hadn’t been able to attend her own mother’s memorial. “Observing individuals and you look at their success and you overlook that they are struggling like anyone else,” states Seutin.

Development and Themes

All these thoughts contributed to the creation of the production (premiered in the city in 2023). Thankfully, her parent’s treatment was effective, but the idea for the piece was to celebrate “loss, existence, and grief”. Within that, Seutin highlights elements of Makeba’s biography like memories, and references more broadly to the idea of uprooting and loss today. While it’s not explicit in the show, Seutin had in mind a second protagonist, a contemporary version who is a traveler. “And we gather as these alter egos of characters linked with the icon to welcome this newcomer.”

Rhythms of exile … performers in the show.

In the show, rather than being intoxicated by the shebeen’s local drink, the multi-talented performers appear taken over by beat, in synthesis with the musicians on stage. Her choreography includes multiple styles of movement she has learned over the time, including from African nations, plus the global performers’ own vocabularies, including urban dances like krump.

Honoring strength … the creator.

Seutin was surprised to find that some of the younger, non-South Africans in the group were unaware about the singer. (She passed away in the year after having a heart attack on the platform in the country.) Why should younger generations discover the legend? “I think she would motivate the youth to stand for what they are, expressing honesty,” remarks Seutin. “But she accomplished this very gracefully. She expressed something meaningful and then sing a beautiful song.” She wanted to adopt the similar method in this work. “Audiences observe dancing and hear beautiful songs, an element of entertainment, but intertwined with strong messages and instances that hit. That’s what I respect about her. Because if you are being overly loud, people may ignore. They retreat. Yet she achieved it in a manner that you would receive it, and understand it, but still be graced by her talent.”

• Mimi’s Shebeen is at London, the dates