🔗 Share this article

“If you talk about the legendary singer in the nation, it’s akin to referring about a queen,” states the choreographer. Known as the Empress of African Song, Makeba additionally associated in New York with jazz greats like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Beginning as a young person dispatched to labor to provide for her relatives in Johannesburg, she later served as an envoy for Ghana, then the country’s representative to the UN. An outspoken campaigner against segregation, she was the wife to a Black Panther. This rich life and legacy motivate the choreographer’s new production, the performance, scheduled for its British debut.

A Blend of Movement, Sound, and Narration

Mimi’s Shebeen combines dance, live music, and spoken word in a theatrical piece that isn’t a simple biography but draws on Makeba’s history, particularly her experience of banishment: after relocating to New York in 1959, she was prohibited from South Africa for three decades due to her anti-apartheid stance. Later, she was banned from the US after marrying Black Panther activist Stokely Carmichael. The show resembles a ceremonial tribute, a reimagined memorial – part eulogy, some festivity, part provocation – with a exceptional South African singer the performer leading bringing Makeba’s songs to vibrant life.

Power and poise … Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the country, a informal gathering spot is an unofficial gathering place for locally made drinks and lively conversation, usually managed by a shebeen queen. Her parent the matriarch was a shebeen queen who was arrested for illegally brewing alcohol when Makeba was 18 days old. Unable to pay the penalty, she went to prison for half a year, bringing her infant with her, which is how Miriam’s remarkable journey started – just one of the details the choreographer discovered when researching her story. “Numerous tales!” exclaims she, when we meet in the city after a show. Her father is from Belgium and she was raised there before moving to learn and labor 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 youngster, and move along in the home.

Melodies of liberation … Miriam Makeba sings at Wembley Stadium in 1988.

A ten years back, Seutin’s mother had cancer and was in medical care in the city. “I paused my career for a quarter to take care of her and she was always asking for the singer. She was so happy when we were singing together,” she recalls. “There was ample time to kill at the hospital so I began investigating.” In addition to reading about her victorious homecoming to South Africa in 1990, after the freedom of Nelson Mandela (whom she had encountered when he was a legal professional in the era), she found that she had been a breast cancer survivor in her youth, that her child the girl passed away in labor in 1985, and that because of her exile she hadn’t been able to be present at her own mother’s memorial. “You see people and you look at their success and you forget that they are struggling like everyone,” says Seutin.

Creation and Themes

All these thoughts went into the making of the show (first staged in Brussels in 2023). Fortunately, Seutin’s mother’s treatment was effective, but the concept for the piece was to celebrate “loss, existence, and grief”. In this context, she highlights elements of Makeba’s biography like flashbacks, and nods more generally to the idea of displacement and dispossession nowadays. Although it’s not overt in the show, Seutin had in mind a additional character, a contemporary version who is a traveler. “And we gather as these alter egos of characters connected to the icon to welcome this newcomer.”

Melodies of banishment … performers in the show.

In the show, rather than being intoxicated by the venue’s local drink, the multi-talented dancers appear taken over by beat, in harmony with the players on stage. Her dance composition incorporates multiple styles of movement she has absorbed over the years, including from African nations, plus the global performers’ own vocabularies, including street styles like krump.

Honoring strength … Alesandra Seutin.

She was surprised to find that some of the newer, international in the cast were unaware about the artist. (She passed away in 2008 after having a cardiac event on the platform in the country.) Why should younger generations discover the legend? “I think she would inspire young people to advocate what they are, expressing honesty,” says the choreographer. “However she did it very elegantly. She expressed something poignant and then perform a lovely melody.” Seutin aimed to adopt the same approach in this production. “Audiences observe movement and hear melodies, an element of enjoyment, but mixed with strong messages and moments that hit. That’s what I admire about her. Because if you are shouting too much, people won’t listen. They back away. But she did it in a way that you would accept it, and understand it, but still be blessed by her talent.”

• Mimi’s Shebeen is showing in the city, the dates