🔗 Share this article

“Discussing about the legendary singer in the nation, it’s like speaking about a royal figure,” explains Alesandra Seutin. Referred to as the Empress of African Song, the iconic artist also associated in Greenwich Village with renowned musicians like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Starting as a teenager dispatched to labor to provide for her relatives in Johannesburg, she later served as an envoy for the nation, then Guinea’s representative to the United Nations. An outspoken campaigner against segregation, she was the wife to a Black Panther. Her rich life and legacy inspire the choreographer’s new production, the performance, scheduled for its UK premiere.

A Blend of Movement, Sound, and Narration

Mimi’s Shebeen combines movement, instrumental performances, and spoken word in a stage work that isn’t a straightforward biodrama but draws on her past, especially her story of exile: after moving to New York in 1959, Makeba was prohibited from her homeland for three decades due to her opposition to segregation. Subsequently, she was excluded from the US after marrying Black Panther activist her spouse. The show is like a ceremonial tribute, a reimagined memorial – some praise, some festivity, part provocation – with the exceptional South African singer the performer leading reviving Makeba’s songs to vibrant life.

Strength and elegance … the production.

In South Africa, a shebeen is an unofficial gathering place for home-brewed liquor and animated discussions, often managed by a host. Makeba’s mother the matriarch was a shebeen queen who was detained for producing drinks without permission when Makeba was a newborn. Unable to pay the penalty, Christina was incarcerated for six months, bringing her infant with her, which is how her remarkable journey started – just one of the details Seutin discovered when studying Makeba’s life. “Numerous tales!” says Seutin, when we meet in the city after a performance. Seutin’s father is Belgian and she was raised there before moving to learn and labor in the United Kingdom, where she established her dance group the ensemble. Her parent would perform her music, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when she was a child, and dance to them in the home.

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

A ten years back, her parent had the illness and was in medical care in the city. “I paused my career for three months to look after her and she was constantly requesting Miriam Makeba. She was so happy when we were singing together,” Seutin remembers. “I had so much time to pass at the hospital so I began investigating.” As well as learning of Makeba’s triumphant return to South Africa in the year, after the release of the leader (whom she had encountered when he was a legal professional in the era), she discovered that she had been a breast cancer survivor in her teens, that her child the girl passed away in childbirth in 1985, and that because of her banishment she hadn’t been able to be present at her parent’s memorial. “Observing individuals and you focus on their achievements and you overlook that they are struggling like anyone else,” states Seutin.

Development and Themes

All these thoughts contributed to the making of the production (premiered in Brussels in 2023). Thankfully, her parent’s treatment was effective, but the idea for the work was to celebrate “loss, existence, and grief”. Within that, she highlights elements of Makeba’s biography like flashbacks, and nods more generally to the idea of displacement and dispossession today. While it’s not explicit in the performance, Seutin had in mind a second protagonist, a modern-day Miriam who is a migrant. “And we gather 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 inebriated by the shebeen’s local drink, the multi-talented performers appear taken over by rhythm, in harmony with the musicians on stage. Seutin’s dance composition incorporates multiple styles of dance she has absorbed over the time, including from African nations, plus the global performers’ personal styles, including street styles like krump.

Honoring strength … Alesandra Seutin.

Seutin was surprised to find that some of the younger, non-South Africans in the group didn’t already know about the artist. (She died in the year after having a cardiac event on stage in Italy.) Why should new audiences learn about Mama Africa? “In my view she would motivate the youth to advocate what they are, speaking the truth,” says the choreographer. “However she accomplished this very gracefully. She expressed something meaningful and then sing a lovely melody.” She wanted to take the similar method in this production. “We see movement and listen to melodies, an element of enjoyment, but intertwined with powerful ideas and instances that resonate. This is what I admire about Miriam. Because if you are shouting too much, people may ignore. They back away. But she achieved it in a manner that you would accept it, and hear it, but still be graced by her talent.”

• Mimi’s Shebeen is showing in the city, 22-24 October