🔗 Share this article

“If you talk about Miriam Makeba in South Africa, it’s similar to talking about a royal figure,” explains the choreographer. Known as Mama Africa, the iconic artist additionally spent time in Greenwich Village with jazz greats like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Starting as a young person sent to work to support her family in Johannesburg, she eventually served as an envoy for the nation, then the country’s official delegate to the United Nations. An outspoken anti-apartheid activist, she was married to a activist. Her remarkable story and impact inspire Seutin’s new production, Mimi’s Shebeen, set for its UK premiere.

A Fusion of Dance, Music, and Spoken Word

The show merges movement, instrumental performances, and spoken word in a stage work that isn’t a simple biography but utilizes her past, especially her story of exile: after moving to New York in 1959, Makeba was barred from South Africa for three decades due to her opposition to segregation. Later, she was excluded from the United States after marrying Black Panther activist her spouse. The show is like a ceremonial tribute, a reimagined memorial – part eulogy, some festivity, some challenge – with a fabulous South African singer Tutu Puoane leading reviving Makeba’s songs to vibrant life.

Strength and elegance … Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the country, a shebeen is an unofficial gathering place for home-brewed liquor and lively conversation, often presided over by a shebeen queen. Makeba’s mother the matriarch was a proprietress who was detained for illegally brewing alcohol when Makeba was 18 days old. Incapable of covering the penalty, Christina went to prison for six months, taking her infant with her, which is how Miriam’s remarkable journey began – just one of the details the choreographer learned when researching Makeba’s life. “Numerous tales!” exclaims she, when we meet in Brussels after a show. Her parent is Belgian and she was raised there before moving to study and work in the UK, where she founded her dance group Vocab Dance. Her South African mother would sing Makeba’s songs, such as the tunes, when she was a child, and move along in the home.

Songs of freedom … the artist performs at Wembley Stadium in 1988.

A ten years back, Seutin’s mother had the illness and was in medical care in London. “I stopped working for three months to look after her and she was always requesting Miriam Makeba. She was so happy when we were performing as one,” Seutin remembers. “There was ample time to pass at the hospital 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 met when he was a young lawyer in the era), Seutin found that she had been a someone who overcame illness in her youth, that Makeba’s daughter the girl passed away in labor in 1985, and that because of her banishment she could not be present at her own mother’s memorial. “Observing individuals and you look at their success and you forget that they are facing challenges like everyone,” states the choreographer.

Development and Concepts

All these thoughts went into the creation of the production (first staged in Brussels in the year). Thankfully, her parent’s therapy was effective, but the idea for the work was to honor “loss, existence, and grief”. Within that, Seutin pulls out threads of her life story like memories, and references more broadly to the theme of uprooting and loss today. While it’s not overt in the performance, she 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 the icon to welcome this newcomer.”

Melodies of banishment … performers in Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the show, rather than being intoxicated by the shebeen’s home-brew, the skilled dancers appear possessed by beat, in harmony with the players on the platform. Her dance composition includes multiple styles of dance she has learned over the time, including from Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal, plus the global performers’ own vocabularies, including street styles like krump.

Honoring strength … the creator.

She was surprised to find that some of the younger, non-South Africans in the group didn’t already know about the singer. (Makeba passed away in 2008 after having a cardiac event on the platform in the country.) Why should younger generations learn about the legend? “In my view she would motivate young people to advocate what they believe in, expressing honesty,” remarks Seutin. “However she did it very elegantly. She’d say something poignant and then sing a lovely melody.” She aimed to adopt the same approach in this work. “We see dancing and hear melodies, an element of enjoyment, but mixed with powerful ideas and instances that hit. That’s what I respect about Miriam. Because if you are being overly loud, people may ignore. They back away. But she did it in a manner that you would receive it, and understand it, but still be blessed by her talent.”

• Mimi’s Shebeen is showing in London, 22-24 October