🔗 Share this article

“If you talk about the legendary singer in South Africa, it’s akin to referring about a royal figure,” states the choreographer. Known as the Empress of African Song, Makeba also spent time in New York with renowned musicians like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Starting as a teenager sent to work to provide for her relatives in the city, she later became a diplomat for the nation, then the country’s official delegate to the UN. An vocal anti-apartheid activist, she was the wife to a activist. This remarkable life and legacy motivate the choreographer’s latest work, Mimi’s Shebeen, set for its UK premiere.

A Blend of Dance, Music, and Spoken Word

The show merges dance, instrumental performances, and spoken word in a theatrical piece that isn’t a simple biography but utilizes Makeba’s history, especially her experience of banishment: after moving to New York in 1959, Makeba was prohibited from her homeland for three decades due to her anti-apartheid stance. Later, she was banned from the US after wedding activist her spouse. The show resembles a ritual of remembrance, a deconstructed funeral – some praise, part celebration, part provocation – with the exceptional vocalist the performer at the centre bringing Makeba’s songs to dynamic existence.

Power and poise … the production.

In the country, a informal gathering spot is an unofficial venue for home-brewed liquor and lively conversation, usually presided over by a host. Makeba’s mother Christina was a shebeen queen who was detained for producing drinks without permission when Miriam was a newborn. Incapable of covering the penalty, she was incarcerated for six months, bringing her baby with her, which is how Miriam’s remarkable journey started – just one of the details the choreographer learned when studying Makeba’s life. “So many stories!” exclaims she, when we meet in Brussels after a show. Her parent is Belgian and she mainly grew up there before moving to study and work in the United Kingdom, where she founded her company the ensemble. Her parent would sing Makeba’s songs, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when Seutin was a child, and dance to them in the home.

Melodies of liberation … the artist sings at Wembley Stadium in the year.

A decade ago, Seutin’s mother had the illness and was in hospital in the city. “I stopped working for three months to take care of her and she was constantly asking for the singer. She was so happy when we were singing together,” she remembers. “There was ample time to pass at the facility so I began investigating.” In addition to learning of Makeba’s triumphant return to the nation in the year, after the freedom of the leader (whom she had encountered when he was a young lawyer in the 1950s), she found that she had been a breast cancer survivor in her youth, that Makeba’s daughter Bongi passed away in childbirth in the year, and that because of her banishment she could not be present at her own mother’s memorial. “Observing individuals and you look at their success and you forget that they are struggling like everyone,” says the choreographer.

Development and Concepts

All these thoughts went into the making of the production (first staged in Brussels in 2023). Thankfully, Seutin’s mother’s therapy was successful, but the idea for the piece was to honor “death, life and mourning”. Within that, Seutin highlights elements of her life story like flashbacks, and references more broadly to the idea of uprooting and loss today. While it’s not overt in the performance, Seutin had in mind a additional character, a modern-day Miriam who is a traveler. “Together, we assemble as these other selves of characters connected to Miriam Makeba to greet this newcomer.”

Rhythms of exile … musicians in the show.

In the show, rather than being intoxicated by the shebeen’s local drink, the skilled performers appear taken over by rhythm, in synthesis with the players on the platform. Her choreography includes multiple styles of dance she has learned over the time, including from Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal, plus the global performers’ own vocabularies, including street styles like krump.

A celebration of resilience … Alesandra Seutin.

Seutin was surprised to find that some of the younger, non-South Africans in the cast didn’t already know about the singer. (Makeba died in the year after having a cardiac event on the platform in Italy.) Why should younger generations discover Mama Africa? “In my view she would inspire the youth to advocate what they believe in, expressing honesty,” remarks Seutin. “However she did it very gracefully. She expressed something poignant and then perform a lovely melody.” Seutin wanted to adopt the same approach in this production. “We see dancing and listen to melodies, an aspect of entertainment, but intertwined with strong messages and moments that hit. This is what I admire about Miriam. Since if you are shouting too much, people won’t listen. They back away. Yet she achieved it in a way that you would receive it, and hear it, but still be graced by her ability.”

• The performance is at the city, 22-24 October