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“When you speak about Miriam Makeba in South Africa, it’s like speaking about a queen,” states the choreographer. Called the Empress of African Song, the iconic artist also spent time in New York with renowned musicians like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Beginning as a teenager sent to work to support her family in the city, she later became a diplomat for Ghana, then the country’s representative to the UN. An vocal campaigner against segregation, she was the wife to a activist. This rich life and legacy inspire Seutin’s new production, Mimi’s Shebeen, scheduled for its UK premiere.

The Fusion of Dance, Music, and Spoken Word

Mimi’s Shebeen combines movement, instrumental performances, and spoken word in a theatrical piece that isn’t a straightforward biodrama but utilizes her past, particularly her experience of banishment: after moving to New York in the year, she was prohibited from South Africa for three decades due to her anti-apartheid stance. Subsequently, she was banned from the United States after wedding Black Panther activist her spouse. The show is like a ceremonial tribute, a deconstructed funeral – part eulogy, some festivity, some challenge – with a fabulous South African singer Tutu Puoane leading reviving her music to vibrant life.

Power and poise … the production.

In the country, a shebeen is an under-the-radar gathering place for home-brewed liquor and lively conversation, often presided over by a host. Makeba’s mother Christina was a shebeen queen who was arrested for illegally brewing alcohol when Miriam was 18 days old. Incapable of covering the penalty, she was incarcerated for six months, taking her baby with her, which is how her remarkable journey began – just one of the details Seutin discovered when researching Makeba’s life. “So many stories!” says she, when we meet in Brussels after a performance. Her parent is Belgian and she mainly grew up there before relocating to learn and labor in the United Kingdom, where she founded her dance group Vocab Dance. Her parent would perform her music, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when she was a youngster, and dance to them in the living room.

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

A ten years back, Seutin’s mother had cancer and was in hospital in the city. “I paused my career for three months to take care of her and she was constantly requesting Miriam Makeba. It delighted her when we were performing as one,” she remembers. “I had so much time to kill at the hospital so I began investigating.” In addition to reading about her victorious homecoming to South Africa in the year, after the freedom of Nelson Mandela (whom she had encountered when he was a legal professional in the 1950s), Seutin discovered that she had been a someone who overcame illness in her youth, that her child Bongi passed away in labor in the year, and that due to her exile she could not attend her own mother’s funeral. “You see people and you focus on their achievements and you forget that they are facing challenges like everyone,” states Seutin.

Development and Concepts

These reflections went into the creation of the show (first staged in Brussels in 2023). Fortunately, her parent’s therapy was effective, but the concept for the work was to honor “loss, existence, and grief”. In this context, she highlights threads of her life story like memories, and nods more generally to the idea of displacement and dispossession nowadays. While it’s not overt in the performance, she had in mind a second protagonist, a modern-day Miriam who is a traveler. “Together, we assemble as these other selves of personas connected to Miriam Makeba to greet this young migrant.”

Rhythms of exile … performers in Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the performance, rather than being intoxicated by the venue’s home-brew, the skilled dancers appear taken over by beat, in synthesis with the musicians on the platform. Her choreography incorporates various forms of dance she has absorbed over the time, including from Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal, plus the international cast’ own vocabularies, including street styles like the form.

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. (Makeba passed away in the year after having a cardiac event on stage in Italy.) Why should new audiences discover Mama Africa? “In my view she would inspire young people to advocate what they believe in, expressing honesty,” says Seutin. “But she accomplished this very elegantly. She expressed something poignant and then perform a beautiful song.” Seutin aimed to adopt the similar method in this work. “Audiences observe movement and listen to beautiful songs, an aspect of entertainment, but mixed with strong messages and instances that resonate. This is what I admire about Miriam. Because if you are being overly loud, people won’t listen. They retreat. But she did it in a way that you would receive it, and hear it, but still be graced by her talent.”

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