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“Discussing about the legendary singer in the nation, it’s akin to referring about a sovereign,” explains Alesandra Seutin. Known as Mama Africa, Makeba also spent time in New York with jazz greats like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Starting as a young person sent to work to support her family in the city, she later became a diplomat for Ghana, then the country’s official delegate to the UN. An outspoken campaigner against segregation, she was the wife to a activist. Her rich life and legacy inspire the choreographer’s new production, the performance, scheduled for its British debut.

A Blend of Movement, Sound, and Narration

Mimi’s Shebeen merges movement, live music, and spoken word in a stage work that isn’t a simple biography but utilizes her past, especially her experience of banishment: after moving to the city in the year, Makeba was barred from her homeland for 30 years due to her opposition to segregation. Subsequently, she was banned from the US after wedding Black Panther activist her spouse. The performance is like a ceremonial tribute, a reimagined memorial – part eulogy, some festivity, part provocation – with the exceptional vocalist Tutu Puoane at the centre bringing her music to dynamic existence.

Power and poise … Mimi’s Shebeen.

In South Africa, a informal gathering spot is an under-the-radar venue for home-brewed liquor and animated discussions, usually managed by a shebeen queen. Her parent the matriarch was a shebeen queen who was arrested for producing drinks without permission when Makeba was a newborn. Unable to pay the fine, Christina went to prison for half a year, taking her baby with her, which is how Miriam’s eventful life started – just one of the details the choreographer learned when researching Makeba’s life. “So many stories!” says she, when we meet in the city after a show. Seutin’s parent is from Belgium and she mainly grew up there before relocating to study and work in the UK, where she founded her company Vocab Dance. Her parent would perform her music, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when Seutin was a youngster, and dance to them in the home.

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

A ten years back, Seutin’s mother had cancer and was in hospital in London. “I stopped working for a quarter to take care of her and she was always requesting the singer. She was so happy when we were performing as one,” Seutin recalls. “There was ample time to kill at the facility so I began investigating.” As well as learning of her victorious homecoming to the nation in the year, after the release of the leader (whom she had met when he was a legal professional in the 1950s), Seutin found that Makeba had been a breast cancer survivor in her teens, that Makeba’s daughter Bongi passed away in labor in the year, and that because of her banishment she could not attend her parent’s funeral. “You see people and you focus on their success and you overlook that they are facing challenges like everyone,” says Seutin.

Development and Themes

These reflections contributed to the making of the production (premiered in the city in the year). Fortunately, Seutin’s mother’s therapy was effective, but the idea for the piece was to celebrate “loss, existence, and grief”. Within that, she highlights threads of Makeba’s biography like flashbacks, and references more generally to the theme of uprooting and loss nowadays. Although it’s not overt 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 personas linked with the icon to welcome this young migrant.”

Melodies of banishment … performers in Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the performance, rather than being inebriated by the venue’s local drink, the multi-talented dancers appear possessed by beat, in harmony with the players on stage. Seutin’s dance composition includes various forms of dance she has absorbed over the years, including from African nations, plus the international cast’ personal styles, including street styles like the form.

Honoring strength … Alesandra Seutin.

Seutin was surprised to find that some of the younger, non-South Africans in the group didn’t already know about the singer. (She died in the year after having a cardiac event on the platform in Italy.) Why should younger generations learn about Mama Africa? “In my view she would inspire young people to advocate what they are, speaking the truth,” says the choreographer. “However she accomplished this very elegantly. She expressed something poignant and then sing a beautiful song.” Seutin wanted to take the same approach in this production. “Audiences observe dancing and hear melodies, an element of enjoyment, but intertwined with powerful ideas and moments that hit. This is what I admire about Miriam. 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 blessed by her talent.”

• The performance is showing in the city, the dates