🔗 Share this article

“If you talk about Miriam Makeba in the nation, it’s like speaking about a sovereign,” states Alesandra Seutin. Known as the Empress of African Song, the iconic artist additionally spent time in New York with jazz greats like prominent artists. Beginning as a young person dispatched to labor to provide for her relatives in the city, she eventually became a diplomat for the nation, then the country’s official delegate to the United Nations. An outspoken anti-apartheid activist, she was the wife to a Black Panther. Her remarkable story and impact motivate the choreographer’s new production, the performance, scheduled for its British debut.

A Blend of Movement, Sound, and Narration

Mimi’s Shebeen combines movement, live music, and spoken word in a stage work that isn’t a straightforward biodrama but draws on her past, particularly her experience of banishment: after moving to New York in 1959, Makeba was barred from her homeland for 30 years due to her opposition to segregation. Later, she was banned from the US after marrying Black Panther activist Stokely Carmichael. The performance resembles a ritual of remembrance, a reimagined memorial – some praise, some festivity, part provocation – with a fabulous South African singer the performer leading bringing her music to vibrant life.

Strength and elegance … the production.

In South Africa, a informal gathering spot is an under-the-radar venue for home-brewed liquor and lively conversation, usually presided over by a shebeen queen. Makeba’s mother the matriarch was a proprietress who was arrested for illegally brewing alcohol when Miriam was a newborn. Incapable of covering the fine, Christina went to prison for six months, taking her infant with her, which is how Miriam’s remarkable journey started – just one of the details Seutin discovered when studying her story. “Numerous tales!” exclaims Seutin, when they met in the city after a performance. Her father is from Belgium and she mainly grew up there before relocating to study and work in the UK, where she established her company the ensemble. Her parent would perform her music, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when Seutin was a child, and dance to them in the living room.

Melodies of liberation … Miriam Makeba performs at Wembley Stadium in the year.

A ten years back, her parent had cancer and was in medical care in London. “I paused my career for three months to take care of her and she was always requesting Miriam Makeba. It delighted her when we were performing as one,” she remembers. “There was ample time to pass at the hospital so I began investigating.” In addition to reading about her victorious homecoming to the nation in the year, after the release of the leader (whom she had encountered when he was a legal professional in the era), Seutin found that Makeba had been a breast cancer survivor in her youth, that Makeba’s daughter the girl passed away in childbirth in the year, and that because of her banishment she could not be present at her parent’s memorial. “You see people and you look at their achievements and you overlook that they are facing challenges like everyone,” says the choreographer.

Development and Concepts

All these thoughts went into the creation of the show (premiered in Brussels in 2023). Thankfully, Seutin’s mother’s treatment was successful, but the idea for the piece was to celebrate “loss, existence, and grief”. Within that, Seutin pulls out threads of Makeba’s biography like memories, and references more broadly to the theme of uprooting and loss nowadays. Although it’s not overt in the performance, she had in mind a additional character, a modern-day Miriam who is a traveler. “Together, we assemble as these other selves of personas linked with the icon to greet this young migrant.”

Rhythms of exile … performers in Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the show, rather than being inebriated by the shebeen’s local drink, the skilled dancers appear possessed by beat, in synthesis with the players on the platform. Her dance composition incorporates multiple styles of movement she has learned over the years, including from African nations, plus the international cast’ own vocabularies, including street styles like the form.

A celebration of resilience … Alesandra Seutin.

Seutin was surprised to find that some of the newer, international in the group didn’t already know about the artist. (Makeba died in 2008 after having a heart attack on the platform in the country.) Why should new audiences discover the legend? “In my view she would inspire the youth to advocate what they believe in, expressing honesty,” remarks Seutin. “But she accomplished this very elegantly. She expressed something meaningful and then sing a lovely melody.” She wanted to take the similar method in this production. “Audiences observe dancing and hear melodies, an element of entertainment, but mixed with strong messages and moments that resonate. This is what I respect about her. Because if you are being overly loud, people won’t listen. They back away. But she achieved it in a manner that you would receive it, and understand it, but still be graced by her ability.”

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