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“If you talk about Miriam Makeba in the nation, it’s similar to talking about a sovereign,” remarks the choreographer. Referred to as Mama Africa, the iconic artist also associated in New York with jazz greats like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Beginning as a young person dispatched to labor to support her family in the city, she later served as an envoy for Ghana, then the country’s representative to the UN. An vocal campaigner against segregation, she was the wife to a activist. This rich story and impact motivate Seutin’s new production, Mimi’s Shebeen, scheduled for its UK premiere.

The Fusion of Movement, Sound, and Narration

The show merges movement, live music, and spoken word in a stage work that is not a simple biography but draws on Makeba’s history, particularly her experience of banishment: after relocating to New York in 1959, Makeba was barred from her homeland for 30 years due to her anti-apartheid stance. Subsequently, she was excluded from the US after wedding activist her spouse. The performance is like a ceremonial tribute, a reimagined memorial – part eulogy, some festivity, part provocation – with a fabulous South African singer the performer at the centre bringing Makeba’s songs to vibrant life.

Strength and elegance … the production.

In the country, a informal gathering spot is an unofficial venue for locally made drinks and animated discussions, usually managed by a host. Makeba’s mother Christina was a shebeen queen who was detained for producing drinks without permission when Makeba was 18 days old. Incapable of covering the penalty, Christina was incarcerated for six months, taking her baby with her, which is how her eventful life began – just one of the things the choreographer discovered when studying her story. “Numerous tales!” says she, when we meet in the city after a show. Her father is from Belgium and she mainly grew up there before moving to study and work in the United Kingdom, where she established her dance group the ensemble. Her South African mother would perform her music, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when Seutin was a child, and move along in the living room.

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

A decade ago, Seutin’s mother had cancer and was in hospital in the city. “I stopped working for three months to look after her and she was always requesting Miriam Makeba. She was so happy when we were performing as one,” she remembers. “There was ample time to kill at the hospital so I began investigating.” In addition to learning of 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 1950s), she discovered that Makeba had been a breast cancer survivor in her youth, that her child the girl passed away in childbirth in 1985, and that due to her banishment she hadn’t been able to attend her parent’s funeral. “Observing individuals and you focus on their achievements and you forget that they are struggling like everyone,” states the choreographer.

Development and Themes

These reflections contributed to the creation of the show (first staged in the city in 2023). Fortunately, her parent’s treatment was successful, but the concept for the piece was to honor “loss, existence, and grief”. Within that, she pulls out threads of Makeba’s biography like flashbacks, and references more broadly to the idea of uprooting and loss today. Although it’s not explicit in the show, Seutin had in mind a additional character, a modern-day Miriam who is a traveler. “And we gather as these other selves of characters connected to Miriam Makeba to greet this newcomer.”

Rhythms of exile … performers in Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the show, rather than being intoxicated by the venue’s local drink, the skilled performers appear possessed by rhythm, in synthesis with the players on stage. Seutin’s dance composition includes various forms of dance she has learned over the years, including from Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal, plus the global performers’ own vocabularies, including urban dances like the form.

A celebration of resilience … Alesandra Seutin.

She was surprised to find that some of the newer, international in the cast didn’t already know about the artist. (She died in 2008 after having a heart attack on stage in Italy.) Why should younger generations discover the legend? “In my view she would motivate young people to advocate what they are, expressing honesty,” says Seutin. “But she did it very gracefully. She expressed something poignant and then sing a lovely melody.” Seutin wanted to adopt the similar method in this work. “We see movement and hear melodies, an element of enjoyment, but intertwined with powerful ideas and moments that resonate. This is what I respect about Miriam. Since if you are shouting too much, people won’t listen. They retreat. But she did it in a way that you would receive it, and understand it, but still be graced by her talent.”

• Mimi’s Shebeen is at London, the dates