Honoring Mama Africa: A Struggle of a Courageous Singer Told in a Daring Theatrical Performance

“If you talk about Miriam Makeba in the nation, it’s like speaking about a royal figure,” states the choreographer. Called the Empress of African Song, the iconic artist also spent time in Greenwich Village with renowned musicians like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Beginning as a teenager dispatched to labor 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 vocal campaigner against segregation, she was married to a activist. This rich life and legacy inspire Seutin’s latest work, Mimi’s Shebeen, scheduled for its British debut.

The Blend of Dance, Music, and Spoken Word

Mimi’s Shebeen merges dance, instrumental performances, and oral storytelling in a theatrical piece that is not a straightforward biodrama but draws on Makeba’s history, particularly her story of exile: after moving to New York in the year, Makeba was prohibited from her homeland for 30 years due to her opposition to segregation. Subsequently, she was excluded from the United States after wedding activist her spouse. The performance is like a ceremonial tribute, a deconstructed funeral – some praise, part celebration, some challenge – with a exceptional vocalist Tutu Puoane leading bringing Makeba’s songs to dynamic existence.

Strength and elegance … the production.

In South Africa, a shebeen is an unofficial gathering place for home-brewed liquor and lively conversation, usually managed by a shebeen queen. Makeba’s mother Christina was a proprietress who was detained for illegally brewing alcohol when Miriam was 18 days old. Unable to pay the penalty, Christina went to prison for six months, bringing her baby with her, which is how Miriam’s remarkable journey started – just one of the details Seutin learned when studying her story. “So many stories!” says Seutin, when they met in Brussels after a show. Her parent is from Belgium and she was raised there before moving to study and work in the UK, where she founded her company Vocab Dance. Her parent would perform Makeba’s songs, such as the tunes, when Seutin was a child, and dance to them in the home.

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

A ten years back, Seutin’s mother had cancer and was in hospital in London. “I paused my career for three months to look after her and she was constantly requesting the singer. She was so happy when we were performing as one,” Seutin recalls. “I had so much time to pass at the facility so I began investigating.” As well as learning of Makeba’s triumphant return to South Africa in the year, after the freedom of the leader (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 teens, that her child Bongi passed away in childbirth in 1985, and that because of her exile she could not attend her own mother’s memorial. “You see people and you look at their achievements and you overlook that they are facing challenges like everyone,” states Seutin.

Development and Themes

These reflections went into the making of the show (first staged in Brussels in the year). Thankfully, Seutin’s mother’s therapy was effective, but the concept for the piece was to celebrate “death, life and mourning”. Within that, she highlights elements of her life story like flashbacks, and nods more broadly to the theme of displacement and dispossession nowadays. While it’s not explicit in the performance, she had in mind a additional character, a modern-day Miriam who is a migrant. “And we gather as these other selves of characters connected to Miriam Makeba to greet this newcomer.”

Melodies of banishment … performers in the show.

In the show, rather than being inebriated by the shebeen’s home-brew, the multi-talented dancers appear possessed by rhythm, in harmony with the players on the platform. Her dance composition includes multiple styles of movement she has learned over the years, including from Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal, plus the global performers’ own vocabularies, including urban dances like the form.

Honoring strength … Alesandra Seutin.

Seutin was taken aback to find that some of the newer, international in the group were unaware about the singer. (Makeba died in the year after having a heart attack on stage in Italy.) Why should younger generations discover Mama Africa? “I think she would motivate young people to stand for what they are, expressing honesty,” remarks the choreographer. “But she did it very gracefully. She expressed something meaningful and then perform a beautiful song.” Seutin aimed to adopt the similar method in this work. “Audiences observe dancing and hear melodies, an aspect of enjoyment, but mixed with strong messages and instances that resonate. This is what I respect about her. Because if you are being overly loud, people may ignore. They retreat. Yet she did it in a manner that you would accept it, and understand it, but still be graced by her ability.”

• The performance is at the city, the dates