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“When you speak about Miriam Makeba in the nation, it’s like speaking about a sovereign,” states Alesandra Seutin. Called Mama Africa, Makeba also spent time in Greenwich Village with renowned musicians like prominent artists. Starting as a teenager dispatched to labor to provide for her relatives in the city, she eventually became a diplomat for Ghana, then the country’s official delegate to the United Nations. An outspoken anti-apartheid activist, she was married to a Black Panther. Her remarkable story and impact motivate the choreographer’s new production, Mimi’s Shebeen, set for its British debut.

The Fusion of Movement, Sound, and Narration

Mimi’s Shebeen merges movement, instrumental performances, and oral storytelling in a stage work that isn’t a straightforward biodrama but utilizes her past, particularly her story of exile: after relocating to New York in the year, Makeba was prohibited from her homeland for three decades due to her opposition to segregation. Later, she was excluded from the United States after marrying activist Stokely Carmichael. The performance is like a ceremonial tribute, a deconstructed funeral – some praise, some festivity, some challenge – with a exceptional vocalist the performer leading bringing her music to vibrant life.

Power and poise … the production.

In South Africa, a shebeen is an unofficial gathering place for locally made drinks and animated discussions, often managed by a shebeen queen. Makeba’s mother 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, taking her baby with her, which is how her remarkable journey started – just one of the details the choreographer discovered when researching her story. “So many stories!” says she, when they met in Brussels after a performance. Her parent is Belgian and she was raised there before relocating to study and work in the UK, where she established her dance group Vocab Dance. Her South African mother would perform her music, such as the tunes, when Seutin was a youngster, and move along in the living room.

Songs of freedom … the artist sings at the venue in 1988.

A ten years back, her parent had cancer and was in hospital in London. “I paused my career for three months to take care of her and she was always asking for Miriam Makeba. She was so happy when we were performing as one,” she recalls. “I had so much time to pass at the hospital so I began investigating.” In addition to reading about her victorious homecoming to the nation in 1990, after the release of Nelson Mandela (whom she had met when he was a legal professional in the era), Seutin found that she had been a someone who overcame illness in her teens, that Makeba’s daughter the girl passed away in labor in 1985, and that due to her banishment she hadn’t been able to be present at her own mother’s funeral. “You see people and you focus on their achievements and you forget that they are struggling like anyone else,” says Seutin.

Creation and Themes

All these thoughts went into the making of the show (first staged in Brussels in 2023). Thankfully, Seutin’s mother’s treatment was effective, but the concept for the piece was to celebrate “death, life and mourning”. Within that, Seutin highlights elements of Makeba’s biography like memories, and references more generally to the idea of uprooting and loss nowadays. Although it’s not explicit in the show, Seutin had in mind a additional character, a modern-day Miriam who is a migrant. “And we gather as these other selves of personas connected to Miriam Makeba to greet this young migrant.”

Melodies of banishment … musicians in Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the show, rather than being intoxicated by the shebeen’s local drink, the multi-talented performers appear taken over by beat, in synthesis with the musicians on the platform. Her dance composition incorporates multiple styles of dance she has absorbed over the years, including from African nations, plus the global performers’ own vocabularies, including urban dances like krump.

A celebration of resilience … Alesandra Seutin.

She was surprised to find that some of the younger, non-South Africans in the cast were unaware about the artist. (She died in the year after having a cardiac event on stage in Italy.) Why should new audiences discover Mama Africa? “I think she would inspire young people to stand for what they believe in, expressing honesty,” says the choreographer. “But she did it very elegantly. She’d say something poignant and then perform a lovely melody.” She wanted to adopt the similar method in this work. “Audiences observe dancing and hear beautiful songs, an aspect of entertainment, but mixed with powerful ideas and instances that hit. That’s what I admire about her. Because if you are shouting too much, people won’t listen. They back away. Yet she achieved it in a manner that you would accept it, and hear it, but still be graced by her talent.”

• The performance is at the city, 22-24 October