🔗 Share this article

“If you talk about the legendary singer in the nation, it’s like speaking about a sovereign,” states Alesandra Seutin. Known as Mama Africa, the iconic artist also associated in Greenwich Village with jazz greats like prominent artists. Beginning as a teenager sent to work to support her family in Johannesburg, she eventually served as an envoy for Ghana, then Guinea’s representative to the UN. An outspoken campaigner against segregation, she was the wife to a activist. Her remarkable story and impact motivate Seutin’s latest work, Mimi’s Shebeen, set for its UK premiere.

The Fusion of Dance, Music, and Spoken Word

The show merges movement, instrumental performances, and spoken word in a theatrical piece that is not a simple biography but draws on Makeba’s history, especially her story of exile: after moving to New York in 1959, she was barred from South Africa for 30 years due to her opposition to segregation. Subsequently, she was banned from the United States after marrying activist her spouse. The show is like a ritual of remembrance, a deconstructed funeral – some praise, part celebration, some challenge – with a fabulous South African singer the performer at the centre bringing Makeba’s songs to dynamic existence.

Power and poise … the production.

In South Africa, a shebeen is an unofficial venue for home-brewed liquor and animated discussions, often managed by a shebeen queen. Makeba’s mother the matriarch was a proprietress who was arrested for producing drinks without permission when Miriam was 18 days old. Unable to pay the penalty, Christina was incarcerated for half a year, bringing her infant with her, which is how Miriam’s eventful life started – just one of the things the choreographer learned when researching Makeba’s life. “So many stories!” says she, when they met in the city after a performance. Seutin’s parent is from Belgium and she was raised there before relocating to study and work in the United Kingdom, where she founded her dance group Vocab Dance. Her parent would sing Makeba’s songs, such as the tunes, when she was a child, and move along in the home.

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

A decade ago, Seutin’s mother had the illness and was in medical care in the city. “I paused my career for three months to look after her and she was always requesting the singer. It delighted her when we were singing together,” she recalls. “I had so much time to pass at the facility so I began investigating.” As well as reading about her victorious homecoming to South Africa in 1990, after the release of Nelson Mandela (whom she had met when he was a legal professional in the era), she found that Makeba had been a someone who overcame illness in her teens, that Makeba’s daughter the girl passed away in childbirth in 1985, and that because of her banishment she could not attend her own mother’s memorial. “You see people and you look at their achievements and you forget that they are facing challenges like anyone else,” says Seutin.

Development and Concepts

These reflections contributed to the creation of the production (first staged in Brussels in 2023). Thankfully, her parent’s treatment was successful, but the idea for the work was to honor “loss, existence, and grief”. Within that, Seutin highlights elements of her life story like flashbacks, and nods more generally to the idea of uprooting and loss today. While it’s not explicit in the performance, Seutin had in mind a second protagonist, a contemporary version who is a traveler. “Together, we assemble as these alter egos of characters connected to Miriam Makeba to greet this newcomer.”

Rhythms of exile … musicians in the show.

In the show, rather than being inebriated by the venue’s local drink, the skilled dancers appear taken over by rhythm, in harmony with the players on the platform. Her dance composition includes multiple styles of dance she has learned over the time, including from African nations, plus the global performers’ personal styles, including street styles like the form.

A celebration of resilience … Alesandra Seutin.

Seutin was surprised to find that some of the newer, international in the cast didn’t already know about the singer. (She died in 2008 after having a heart attack on the platform in the country.) Why should new audiences discover Mama Africa? “In my view she would inspire the youth to stand for what they are, expressing honesty,” remarks Seutin. “But she did it very gracefully. She expressed something poignant and then perform a lovely melody.” She wanted to take the same approach in this production. “Audiences observe movement and hear melodies, an element of enjoyment, but mixed with strong messages and instances that hit. That’s what I respect about her. Since if you are being overly loud, people may ignore. They retreat. Yet she did it in a way that you would receive it, and understand it, but still be blessed by her talent.”

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