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“When you speak about the legendary singer in the nation, it’s like speaking about a queen,” states the choreographer. Referred to as Mama Africa, the iconic artist also associated in Greenwich Village with renowned musicians like prominent artists. Starting as a teenager sent to work to provide for her relatives in the city, she later became a diplomat for Ghana, 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 inspire Seutin’s new production, Mimi’s Shebeen, scheduled for its UK premiere.

A Fusion of Movement, Sound, and Narration

The show combines movement, live music, and oral storytelling in a theatrical piece that is not a straightforward biodrama but utilizes her past, especially her story of exile: after moving to the city in the year, Makeba was barred from her homeland for three decades due to her anti-apartheid stance. Later, she was banned from the United States after marrying Black Panther activist Stokely Carmichael. The show resembles a ritual of remembrance, a deconstructed funeral – some praise, part celebration, some challenge – with a exceptional South African singer Tutu Puoane leading bringing her music to vibrant life.

Power and poise … Mimi’s Shebeen.

In South Africa, a informal gathering spot is an unofficial venue for locally made drinks and lively conversation, often presided over by a shebeen queen. Her parent the matriarch was a shebeen queen who was arrested for illegally brewing alcohol when Miriam was a newborn. Unable to pay the fine, she went to prison for half a year, taking her baby with her, which is how Miriam’s eventful life started – just one of the things the choreographer discovered when researching Makeba’s life. “So many stories!” says Seutin, when they met in the city after a show. Seutin’s father is Belgian and she was raised there before relocating to study and work in the UK, where she established her company the ensemble. Her parent would sing Makeba’s songs, such as the tunes, when she was a child, and move along in the home.

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

A ten years back, her parent had the illness and was in hospital in the city. “I stopped working for a quarter to take care of her and she was constantly asking for the singer. She was so happy when we were performing as one,” Seutin recalls. “There was ample time to kill at the hospital so I began investigating.” In addition to learning of Makeba’s triumphant return to the nation in 1990, after the freedom of the leader (whom she had met when he was a legal professional in the era), Seutin found that she had been a breast cancer survivor in her teens, that Makeba’s daughter Bongi passed away in labor in the year, and that due to her exile she could not attend her parent’s memorial. “Observing individuals and you look at their success and you forget that they are struggling like anyone else,” states Seutin.

Development and Concepts

These reflections went into the creation of the production (premiered in Brussels in 2023). Fortunately, Seutin’s mother’s therapy was effective, but the idea for the piece was to honor “loss, existence, and grief”. Within that, Seutin pulls out elements of her life story like flashbacks, and nods more generally to the idea of uprooting and loss nowadays. While it’s not explicit in the show, Seutin had in mind a additional character, a contemporary version who is a migrant. “And we gather as these other selves of characters linked with Miriam Makeba to greet this young migrant.”

Rhythms of exile … musicians in the show.

In the performance, rather than being intoxicated by the shebeen’s home-brew, the skilled dancers appear taken over by beat, in synthesis with the players on stage. Her choreography incorporates multiple styles of movement she has learned over the time, including from Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal, plus the international cast’ own vocabularies, including urban dances like the form.

Honoring strength … Alesandra Seutin.

Seutin was surprised to find that some of the newer, international in the cast didn’t already know about the singer. (Makeba died in 2008 after having a cardiac event on the platform in Italy.) Why should new audiences learn about Mama Africa? “I think she would motivate young people to advocate what they are, expressing honesty,” remarks Seutin. “But she accomplished this very elegantly. She expressed something poignant and then perform a lovely melody.” She wanted to take the same approach in this production. “Audiences observe movement and hear beautiful songs, an element of enjoyment, but mixed with powerful ideas and instances that resonate. That’s what I respect about her. Since if you are being overly loud, people won’t listen. They back away. Yet she achieved it in a manner that you would receive it, and understand it, but still be blessed by her talent.”

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