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“If you talk about Miriam Makeba in the nation, it’s like speaking about a queen,” explains Alesandra Seutin. Referred to as the Empress of African Song, Makeba also spent time in Greenwich Village with renowned musicians like prominent artists. Starting as a teenager dispatched to labor to support her family in the city, she later served as an envoy for Ghana, then Guinea’s official delegate to the UN. An vocal campaigner against segregation, she was the wife to a Black Panther. This rich life and legacy motivate Seutin’s latest work, Mimi’s Shebeen, scheduled for its UK premiere.

The Blend of Movement, Sound, and Narration

Mimi’s Shebeen merges movement, instrumental performances, and oral storytelling in a stage work that is not a straightforward biodrama but utilizes her past, especially her experience of banishment: after relocating to the city in 1959, Makeba was prohibited from her homeland for 30 years due to her anti-apartheid stance. Later, she was banned from the United States after wedding activist Stokely Carmichael. The show is like a ceremonial tribute, a reimagined memorial – some praise, part celebration, some challenge – with a fabulous vocalist Tutu Puoane leading reviving Makeba’s songs to dynamic existence.

Strength and elegance … Mimi’s Shebeen.

In South Africa, a shebeen is an under-the-radar gathering place for locally made drinks and lively conversation, often presided over by a shebeen queen. 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 fine, she went to prison for six months, bringing her infant with her, which is how Miriam’s eventful life began – just one of the things the choreographer learned when studying her story. “So many stories!” exclaims she, when we meet in Brussels after a performance. Her father is Belgian and she was raised there before moving to learn and labor in the United Kingdom, where she established her company Vocab Dance. Her South African mother would perform her music, such as the tunes, when she was a child, and move along in the living room.

Melodies of liberation … the artist performs at Wembley Stadium in 1988.

A ten years back, her parent had cancer and was in medical care in London. “I stopped working for a quarter to look after her and she was constantly requesting Miriam Makeba. It delighted her when we were singing together,” she remembers. “I had so much time to pass at the hospital so I began investigating.” In addition to reading about her victorious homecoming to South Africa in 1990, after the release of the leader (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 teens, that her child the girl died in childbirth in the year, and that due to her exile she could not 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

All these thoughts contributed to the creation of the production (first staged in the city in 2023). Fortunately, Seutin’s mother’s therapy was effective, but the idea for the work was to honor “death, life and mourning”. Within that, she pulls out elements of her life story like memories, and references more generally to the theme of displacement and dispossession today. While it’s not explicit in the performance, Seutin had in mind a second protagonist, a contemporary version who is a traveler. “Together, we assemble as these alter egos of personas connected to the icon to greet this newcomer.”

Rhythms of exile … performers in Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the performance, rather than being intoxicated by the shebeen’s home-brew, the skilled dancers appear taken over by beat, in synthesis with the musicians on stage. Seutin’s choreography includes various forms of movement she has learned over the years, including from Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal, plus the international cast’ personal styles, including street styles like krump.

Honoring strength … Alesandra Seutin.

Seutin was taken aback to find that some of the younger, non-South Africans in the cast were unaware about the artist. (Makeba passed away in the year after having a cardiac event on stage in Italy.) Why should new audiences learn about Mama Africa? “In my view she would motivate young people to stand for what they believe in, expressing honesty,” says Seutin. “However she did it very gracefully. She’d say something poignant and then perform a beautiful song.” She aimed to adopt the same approach in this production. “Audiences observe movement and hear melodies, an aspect of entertainment, but intertwined with strong messages and instances that resonate. This is what I respect about Miriam. Because if you are being overly loud, people won’t listen. They back away. But she achieved it in a way that you would accept it, and understand it, but still be graced by her talent.”

• Mimi’s Shebeen is showing in London, 22-24 October