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“When you speak about Miriam Makeba in the nation, it’s like speaking about a royal figure,” explains the choreographer. Referred to as Mama Africa, Makeba additionally spent time in New York with jazz greats like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Beginning as a young person dispatched to labor to provide for her relatives in Johannesburg, she eventually served as an envoy for the nation, then the country’s representative to the UN. An outspoken anti-apartheid activist, she was the wife to a activist. Her rich life and legacy motivate Seutin’s new production, Mimi’s Shebeen, set for its UK premiere.

The Blend of Movement, Sound, and Narration

The show combines dance, instrumental performances, and oral storytelling in a stage work that is not a straightforward biodrama but utilizes her past, particularly her story of exile: after moving to the city in the year, she was barred from her homeland for three decades due to her opposition to segregation. Later, she was banned from the US after wedding activist Stokely Carmichael. The show resembles a ritual of remembrance, a reimagined memorial – part eulogy, some festivity, part provocation – with a fabulous vocalist Tutu Puoane at the centre reviving her music to dynamic existence.

Strength and elegance … Mimi’s Shebeen.

In South Africa, a informal gathering spot is an unofficial gathering place for locally made drinks and lively conversation, usually presided over by a host. Her parent Christina was a shebeen queen who was detained for producing drinks without permission when Miriam was a newborn. Incapable of covering the penalty, she was incarcerated for half a year, bringing her infant with her, which is how her remarkable journey began – just one of the things the choreographer discovered when studying her story. “So many stories!” says Seutin, when they met in the city after a performance. Her father is from Belgium and she mainly grew up there before relocating to learn and labor in the UK, where she founded her company Vocab Dance. Her parent would perform Makeba’s songs, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when she was a youngster, and dance to them in the home.

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

A ten years back, her parent had the illness and was in hospital in the city. “I paused my career for a quarter to look after her and she was constantly asking for 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.” As well as reading about her victorious homecoming to the nation in 1990, after the freedom of the leader (whom she had met when he was a young lawyer in the 1950s), she found that Makeba had been a someone who overcame illness in her youth, that her child Bongi passed away in labor in 1985, and that due to her banishment she hadn’t been able to be present at her parent’s funeral. “Observing individuals and you focus on their success and you forget that they are struggling like everyone,” states Seutin.

Creation and Themes

All these thoughts contributed to the creation of the show (premiered in the city in 2023). Fortunately, her parent’s therapy was effective, but the concept for the piece was to honor “death, life and mourning”. Within that, she pulls out threads of her life story like flashbacks, and references more generally to the idea of uprooting and loss today. While it’s not overt in the show, she had in mind a additional character, a contemporary version who is a migrant. “And we gather as these alter egos of characters linked with the icon to greet this young migrant.”

Melodies of banishment … performers in the show.

In the performance, rather than being intoxicated by the venue’s home-brew, the multi-talented dancers appear taken over by rhythm, in synthesis with the musicians on the platform. Seutin’s dance composition incorporates various forms of dance she has learned over the years, including from Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal, plus the international cast’ 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 group were unaware about the singer. (Makeba passed away in the year after having a cardiac event on the platform in the country.) Why should new audiences discover Mama Africa? “In my view she would motivate young people to advocate what they believe in, speaking the truth,” remarks the choreographer. “But she accomplished this very gracefully. She’d say something meaningful and then sing a beautiful song.” She aimed to take the similar method in this production. “We see movement and listen to melodies, an aspect of enjoyment, but mixed with powerful ideas and moments that hit. This is what I respect about Miriam. Because if you are shouting too much, people may ignore. They retreat. Yet she did it in a manner that you would accept it, and hear it, but still be blessed by her ability.”

• The performance is at the city, the dates