🔗 Share this article

“When you speak about Miriam Makeba in South Africa, it’s like speaking about a sovereign,” states Alesandra Seutin. Known as Mama Africa, the iconic artist additionally spent time in Greenwich Village with jazz greats like prominent artists. Starting as a teenager sent to work to provide for her relatives in Johannesburg, she eventually served as an envoy for the nation, then Guinea’s official delegate to the United Nations. An vocal anti-apartheid activist, she was the wife to a Black Panther. Her rich story and impact motivate Seutin’s latest work, Mimi’s Shebeen, set for its UK premiere.

The Blend of Dance, Music, and Spoken Word

The show combines dance, live music, and spoken word in a stage work that isn’t a straightforward biodrama but utilizes her past, especially her experience of banishment: after moving to New York in 1959, Makeba was barred from South Africa for three decades due to her anti-apartheid stance. Subsequently, she was banned from the United States after marrying activist her spouse. The show resembles a ritual of remembrance, a reimagined memorial – part eulogy, some festivity, some challenge – with a fabulous South African singer the performer at the centre reviving her music to dynamic existence.

Power and poise … the production.

In South Africa, a informal gathering spot is an unofficial gathering place for home-brewed liquor and animated discussions, often managed by a host. Her parent the matriarch was a proprietress who was arrested for producing drinks without permission when Miriam was 18 days old. Incapable of covering the fine, Christina was incarcerated for six months, taking her infant with her, which is how Miriam’s remarkable journey began – just one of the things Seutin discovered when researching her story. “Numerous tales!” says she, when they met in the city after a show. Her parent is Belgian and she mainly grew up there before relocating to learn and labor in the UK, where she founded her company the ensemble. Her South African mother would perform Makeba’s songs, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when Seutin was a youngster, and dance to them in the home.

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

A decade ago, her parent had cancer and was in hospital in the city. “I paused my career for three months to take care of her and she was always requesting Miriam Makeba. It delighted her when we were performing as one,” Seutin remembers. “There was ample time to pass at the facility so I started researching.” In addition to learning of her victorious homecoming to South Africa in 1990, after the release of Nelson Mandela (whom she had met when he was a young lawyer in the era), she discovered that Makeba had been a someone who overcame illness in her teens, that her child Bongi died in labor in the year, and that because of her exile she hadn’t been able to be present at her parent’s memorial. “You see people and you look at their achievements and you overlook that they are facing challenges like everyone,” states the choreographer.

Creation and Concepts

All these thoughts went into the creation of the production (first staged in the city in the year). 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 performance, Seutin had in mind a additional character, a modern-day Miriam who is a migrant. “Together, we assemble as these alter egos of characters linked with Miriam Makeba to greet this young migrant.”

Rhythms of exile … musicians in the show.

In the show, rather than being intoxicated by the shebeen’s local drink, the skilled performers appear taken over by beat, in synthesis with the musicians on stage. Her choreography includes various forms of movement she has learned over the time, including from African nations, plus the global performers’ own vocabularies, including street styles like krump.

Honoring strength … Alesandra Seutin.

She was surprised to find that some of the newer, international in the cast didn’t already know about the singer. (She died in 2008 after having a cardiac event on stage in Italy.) Why should younger generations learn about the legend? “In my view she would motivate the youth to stand for what they believe in, speaking the truth,” says the choreographer. “However she did it very gracefully. She’d say something meaningful and then sing a beautiful song.” Seutin aimed to adopt the similar method in this production. “Audiences observe movement and listen to melodies, an aspect of entertainment, but mixed with strong messages and moments that hit. This is what I respect about her. Since if you are being overly loud, people won’t listen. They back away. But she did it in a way that you would accept it, and hear it, but still be graced by her talent.”

• The performance is at London, the dates