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“If you talk about Miriam Makeba in the nation, it’s like speaking about a sovereign,” remarks the choreographer. Known as Mama Africa, Makeba additionally associated in Greenwich Village with renowned musicians like prominent artists. Starting as a teenager sent to work to provide for her relatives in the city, she later became a diplomat for Ghana, then the country’s representative to the UN. An vocal campaigner against segregation, she was the wife to a activist. Her remarkable story and impact motivate the choreographer’s new production, the performance, scheduled for its British debut.

A Fusion of Movement, Sound, and Narration

Mimi’s Shebeen merges movement, live music, and oral storytelling in a theatrical piece that is not a simple biography but draws on Makeba’s history, especially her story of exile: after relocating to New York in 1959, Makeba was prohibited from her homeland for three decades due to her anti-apartheid stance. Subsequently, she was banned from the United States after marrying Black Panther activist Stokely Carmichael. The show resembles a ceremonial tribute, a reimagined memorial – part eulogy, some festivity, some challenge – with a exceptional vocalist Tutu Puoane leading bringing her music to vibrant life.

Strength and elegance … Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the country, a informal gathering spot is an unofficial gathering place for locally made drinks and lively conversation, usually managed by a shebeen queen. Makeba’s mother the matriarch was a proprietress who was arrested for producing drinks without permission when Makeba was 18 days old. Unable to pay the fine, Christina went to prison for six months, taking her baby with her, which is how Miriam’s eventful life began – just one of the details Seutin learned when studying Makeba’s life. “So many stories!” exclaims Seutin, when we meet in Brussels after a show. Seutin’s parent is from Belgium and she mainly grew up there before moving to study and work in the UK, where she founded her dance group the ensemble. Her South African mother would perform Makeba’s songs, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when Seutin was a youngster, and move along in the home.

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

A decade ago, Seutin’s mother had cancer and was in hospital in London. “I paused my career for a quarter to look after her and she was always asking for the singer. She was so happy when we were singing together,” she remembers. “I had so much time to pass at the facility so I started researching.” As well as learning of 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), she discovered that Makeba had been a someone who overcame illness in her youth, that her child the girl died in childbirth in the year, and that due to her exile she could not attend her parent’s funeral. “You see people and you focus on their achievements and you forget that they are facing challenges like everyone,” states Seutin.

Development and Themes

All these thoughts contributed to the creation of the show (first staged in the city in 2023). Thankfully, her parent’s treatment was successful, but the idea for the work was to celebrate “loss, existence, and grief”. In this context, Seutin highlights elements of her life story like memories, and references more generally to the theme of uprooting and loss today. Although it’s not explicit in the performance, she had in mind a second protagonist, a modern-day Miriam who is a migrant. “And we gather as these alter egos of characters linked with the icon to greet this newcomer.”

Melodies of banishment … performers in the show.

In the performance, rather than being intoxicated by the shebeen’s home-brew, the skilled performers appear taken over by beat, in synthesis with the players on the platform. Her choreography includes various forms of dance she has absorbed over the time, 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 newer, international in the group didn’t already know about the artist. (Makeba died in 2008 after having a heart attack on the platform in Italy.) Why should new audiences discover the legend? “In my view she would motivate young people to stand for what they are, speaking the truth,” says Seutin. “But she did it very gracefully. She expressed something meaningful and then sing a beautiful song.” She wanted to take the similar method in this production. “We see dancing and hear beautiful songs, an element of entertainment, but mixed with powerful ideas and instances that resonate. This is what I respect about her. Since if you are shouting too much, people may ignore. They retreat. But she achieved it in a way that you would receive it, and hear it, but still be graced by her talent.”

• The performance is showing in the city, 22-24 October