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“When you speak about the legendary singer in the nation, it’s like speaking about a royal figure,” remarks the choreographer. Called Mama Africa, Makeba additionally associated in New York with renowned musicians like prominent artists. Beginning as a teenager dispatched to labor to support her family in the city, she eventually became a diplomat for Ghana, then Guinea’s official delegate to the United Nations. An vocal campaigner against segregation, she was married to a Black Panther. Her rich life and legacy inspire the choreographer’s latest work, the performance, scheduled for its UK premiere.

The Fusion of Dance, Music, and Spoken Word

Mimi’s Shebeen combines dance, instrumental performances, and oral storytelling in a stage work that isn’t a simple biography but utilizes her past, particularly her story of exile: after moving to New York in 1959, Makeba was prohibited from her homeland for three decades due to her anti-apartheid stance. Later, she was banned from the United States after wedding Black Panther activist Stokely Carmichael. The show resembles a ritual of remembrance, a deconstructed funeral – some praise, some festivity, some challenge – with the exceptional vocalist the performer leading bringing Makeba’s songs to vibrant life.

Strength and elegance … the production.

In South Africa, a shebeen is an unofficial gathering place for home-brewed liquor and animated discussions, often managed by a shebeen queen. Her parent Christina was a proprietress who was arrested for illegally brewing alcohol when Miriam was 18 days old. Unable to pay the penalty, she was incarcerated for six months, taking her baby with her, which is how her remarkable journey started – just one of the details Seutin learned when studying her story. “So many stories!” exclaims Seutin, when we meet in the city after a show. Her father is Belgian and she mainly grew up there before moving to study and work in the UK, where she established her dance group the ensemble. Her parent would sing Makeba’s songs, such as the tunes, when Seutin was a youngster, and dance to them in the home.

Melodies of liberation … the artist performs at the venue in 1988.

A decade ago, Seutin’s mother had cancer and was in medical care in the city. “I paused my career for a quarter to look after her and she was constantly asking for Miriam Makeba. It delighted her when we were singing together,” she recalls. “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 freedom of Nelson Mandela (whom she had met when he was a legal professional in the era), she discovered that she had been a someone who overcame illness in her youth, that Makeba’s daughter the girl passed away in childbirth in the year, and that because of her banishment she hadn’t been able to attend her parent’s memorial. “Observing individuals and you look at their success and you forget that they are struggling like anyone else,” states Seutin.

Creation and Themes

These reflections contributed to the making of the production (first staged in Brussels in the year). Thankfully, Seutin’s mother’s treatment was effective, but the concept for the work was to celebrate “death, life and mourning”. In this context, she pulls out threads of Makeba’s biography like memories, and nods more broadly to the idea of uprooting and loss today. Although it’s not overt in the performance, Seutin had in mind a second protagonist, a modern-day Miriam who is a migrant. “Together, we assemble as these alter egos of personas connected to Miriam Makeba to greet this newcomer.”

Melodies of banishment … performers in Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the performance, rather than being inebriated by the venue’s local drink, the skilled performers appear taken over by beat, in harmony with the players on the platform. Seutin’s choreography includes various forms of movement she has absorbed over the time, including from Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal, plus the global performers’ own vocabularies, including street styles like krump.

Honoring strength … Alesandra Seutin.

Seutin was taken aback to find that some of the newer, international in the cast didn’t already know about the artist. (She passed away in the year after having a heart attack on stage in the country.) Why should younger generations discover the legend? “I think she would motivate young people to advocate what they believe in, expressing honesty,” says the choreographer. “However she did it very elegantly. She expressed something meaningful and then sing a beautiful song.” Seutin aimed to take the same approach in this production. “We see dancing and hear beautiful songs, an aspect of entertainment, but mixed with powerful ideas and instances that hit. This is what I respect about Miriam. Since if you are shouting too much, people won’t listen. They retreat. Yet she achieved it in a way that you would receive it, and hear it, but still be blessed by her ability.”

• The performance is showing in the city, the dates