🔗 Share this article

“When you speak about Miriam Makeba in South Africa, it’s akin to referring about a queen,” states Alesandra Seutin. Called the Empress of African Song, the iconic artist also spent time in New York with jazz greats like prominent artists. Starting as a teenager sent to work to support her family in Johannesburg, she later served as an envoy for the nation, then the country’s representative to the UN. An vocal campaigner against segregation, she was the wife to a Black Panther. Her remarkable story and impact motivate the choreographer’s new production, the performance, set for its UK premiere.

The Fusion of Movement, Sound, and Narration

Mimi’s Shebeen combines dance, live music, and oral storytelling in a stage work that isn’t a simple biography but utilizes her past, particularly her experience of banishment: after relocating to the city in 1959, Makeba was prohibited from South Africa for 30 years due to her anti-apartheid stance. Subsequently, she was banned from the US after wedding activist her spouse. The show is like a ritual of remembrance, a deconstructed funeral – part eulogy, some festivity, part provocation – with the fabulous South African singer the performer at the centre bringing her music to vibrant life.

Strength and elegance … Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the country, a shebeen is an under-the-radar gathering place for locally made drinks and animated discussions, usually managed by a shebeen queen. Makeba’s mother Christina was a proprietress who was arrested for producing drinks without permission when Miriam was 18 days old. Unable to pay the fine, Christina went to prison for half a year, taking her infant with her, which is how her eventful life began – just one of the details Seutin discovered when researching Makeba’s life. “Numerous tales!” says Seutin, when we meet in the city after a show. Her father is Belgian and she was raised there before relocating to study and work in the United Kingdom, where she founded her company the ensemble. Her South African mother would perform her music, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when Seutin was a youngster, and dance to them in the living room.

Melodies of liberation … the artist sings at the venue in 1988.

A decade ago, her parent had the illness 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. She was so happy when we were performing as one,” she remembers. “I had so much time to pass at the hospital so I began investigating.” As well as reading about Makeba’s triumphant return to the nation in 1990, after the freedom of Nelson Mandela (whom she had encountered when he was a young lawyer in the era), she found that Makeba had been a breast cancer survivor in her teens, that Makeba’s daughter the girl died in childbirth in the year, and that because of her banishment she hadn’t been able to be present at her own mother’s memorial. “Observing individuals and you focus on their achievements and you forget that they are struggling like everyone,” states Seutin.

Development and Themes

These reflections contributed to the creation of the show (first staged in Brussels in 2023). Thankfully, Seutin’s mother’s treatment was successful, but the concept for the work was to honor “death, life and mourning”. Within that, she pulls out elements of Makeba’s biography like flashbacks, and nods more broadly to the idea of displacement and dispossession today. While it’s not explicit in the show, Seutin had in mind a second protagonist, a contemporary version who is a traveler. “Together, we assemble as these other selves of characters linked with the icon to welcome this young migrant.”

Rhythms of exile … performers in Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the performance, rather than being inebriated by the shebeen’s home-brew, the skilled performers appear possessed by rhythm, in harmony with the musicians on stage. Her dance composition includes multiple styles of dance she has learned over the time, including from Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal, plus the international cast’ personal styles, including street styles 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. (She died in 2008 after having a heart attack on stage in the country.) Why should younger generations learn about the legend? “In my view she would motivate young people to stand for what they believe in, speaking the truth,” remarks Seutin. “However she accomplished this very elegantly. She expressed something meaningful and then perform a beautiful song.” She wanted to take the similar method in this production. “We see dancing and listen to melodies, an element of enjoyment, but intertwined with powerful ideas and instances that resonate. This is what I respect about Miriam. Because if you are shouting too much, people won’t listen. They retreat. Yet she did it in a way that you would accept it, and understand it, but still be blessed by her talent.”

• The performance is showing in London, 22-24 October