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“Discussing about the legendary singer in the nation, it’s like speaking about a royal figure,” states Alesandra Seutin. Called the Empress of African Song, Makeba also associated in Greenwich Village with jazz greats like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Starting as a teenager sent to work to support her family in the city, she later served as an envoy for the nation, then the country’s representative to the UN. An vocal anti-apartheid activist, she was married to a Black Panther. This remarkable story and impact inspire Seutin’s latest work, Mimi’s Shebeen, scheduled for its UK premiere.

A Blend of Movement, Sound, and Narration

The show combines movement, live music, and oral storytelling in a theatrical piece that isn’t a straightforward biodrama but draws on Makeba’s history, particularly her story of exile: after moving to the city in 1959, Makeba was prohibited from her homeland for 30 years due to her anti-apartheid stance. Later, she was excluded from the United States after marrying activist Stokely Carmichael. The show is like a ritual of remembrance, a deconstructed funeral – part eulogy, some festivity, part provocation – with the exceptional vocalist the performer leading bringing Makeba’s songs to dynamic existence.

Power and poise … the production.

In South Africa, 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 proprietress who was detained for illegally brewing alcohol when Miriam was 18 days old. Incapable of covering the fine, Christina was incarcerated for six months, bringing her baby with her, which is how her remarkable journey started – just one of the details the choreographer discovered when studying her story. “Numerous tales!” says she, when we meet in Brussels after a show. Seutin’s parent is Belgian and she was raised there before relocating to learn and labor in the UK, where she established her company the ensemble. Her parent would sing Makeba’s songs, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when Seutin was a child, and move along in the living room.

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

A decade ago, her parent had the illness and was in medical care in the city. “I paused my career for three months to take care of her and she was always requesting the singer. It delighted her when we were singing together,” Seutin remembers. “There was ample time to kill at the hospital so I started researching.” In addition to learning of her victorious homecoming to South Africa in the year, after the release of Nelson Mandela (whom she had encountered when he was a legal professional in the 1950s), she found that Makeba had been a breast cancer survivor in her youth, that her child the girl died in labor in 1985, and that because of her exile she hadn’t been able to be present at her own mother’s memorial. “Observing individuals and you look at their achievements and you overlook that they are struggling like everyone,” says Seutin.

Development and Concepts

All these thoughts contributed to the making of the production (first staged in the city in 2023). Thankfully, her parent’s therapy was effective, but the idea for the work was to honor “loss, existence, and grief”. Within that, Seutin pulls out elements of Makeba’s biography like flashbacks, and references more generally to the theme of uprooting and loss today. While it’s not explicit in the show, she had in mind a additional character, a modern-day Miriam who is a migrant. “Together, we assemble as these other selves of characters connected to the icon to greet this newcomer.”

Melodies of banishment … musicians in the show.

In the performance, rather than being inebriated by the shebeen’s home-brew, the multi-talented performers appear taken over by rhythm, in harmony with the musicians on the platform. Seutin’s dance composition incorporates various forms of movement she has learned over the time, including from African nations, plus the international cast’ own vocabularies, including street styles like the form.

A celebration of resilience … Alesandra Seutin.

She was taken aback to find that some of the younger, non-South Africans in the group were unaware about the singer. (She died in the year after having a heart attack on the platform in the country.) Why should new audiences discover the legend? “In my view she would inspire young people to advocate what they believe in, expressing honesty,” says Seutin. “However she accomplished this very gracefully. She expressed something meaningful and then sing a lovely melody.” She aimed to adopt the same approach in this production. “We see dancing and hear beautiful songs, an element of entertainment, but mixed with strong messages and moments that resonate. This is what I admire about her. Because if you are being overly loud, people may ignore. They back away. But she did it in a manner that you would receive it, and hear it, but still be graced by her ability.”

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