🔗 Share this article

“Discussing about the legendary singer in the nation, it’s akin to referring about a royal figure,” explains the choreographer. Known as the Empress of African Song, the iconic artist also spent time in Greenwich Village with renowned musicians like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Starting as a teenager dispatched to labor to support her family in Johannesburg, she later became a diplomat for the nation, then Guinea’s representative to the United Nations. An vocal campaigner against segregation, she was the wife to a activist. Her rich life and legacy inspire the choreographer’s new production, the performance, set for its UK premiere.

A Fusion of Movement, Sound, and Narration

The show merges movement, instrumental performances, and spoken word in a stage work that is not a straightforward biodrama but draws on her past, especially her experience of banishment: after relocating to New York in 1959, Makeba was barred from South Africa for three decades due to her opposition to segregation. Subsequently, she was banned from the United States after wedding activist her spouse. The performance is like a ritual of remembrance, a deconstructed funeral – some praise, some festivity, part provocation – with the exceptional vocalist Tutu Puoane leading bringing Makeba’s songs to dynamic existence.

Power and poise … Mimi’s Shebeen.

In South Africa, a shebeen is an unofficial gathering place for home-brewed liquor and animated discussions, often managed by a host. Makeba’s mother Christina was a proprietress who was arrested for illegally brewing alcohol when Makeba was a newborn. Incapable of covering the fine, she was incarcerated for half a year, taking her baby with her, which is how her remarkable journey started – just one of the details Seutin discovered when researching Makeba’s life. “Numerous tales!” exclaims Seutin, when we meet in the city after a show. Her parent is from Belgium and she was raised there before moving to learn and labor in the United Kingdom, where she founded her company Vocab Dance. Her parent would perform Makeba’s songs, such as the tunes, when Seutin was a youngster, and move along in the home.

Songs of freedom … the artist performs at the venue in 1988.

A decade ago, her parent had the illness and was in hospital in the city. “I paused my career for three months to look after her and she was constantly asking for the singer. It delighted her when we were singing together,” Seutin recalls. “I had so much time to kill at the hospital 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 encountered when he was a young lawyer in the era), she found that she had been a breast cancer survivor in her teens, that Makeba’s daughter Bongi died in labor in 1985, and that because of her exile she could not attend her parent’s memorial. “Observing individuals and you focus on their success and you forget that they are struggling like everyone,” says the choreographer.

Creation and Concepts

All these thoughts contributed to the making of the show (first staged in the city in the year). Fortunately, her parent’s therapy was successful, but the concept for the work was to celebrate “death, life and mourning”. Within that, she pulls out threads of Makeba’s biography like memories, and nods more broadly to the theme of uprooting and loss today. While it’s not overt in the performance, she had in mind a additional character, a contemporary version who is a traveler. “And we gather as these other selves of personas linked with Miriam Makeba to welcome this newcomer.”

Melodies of banishment … musicians in the show.

In the performance, rather than being intoxicated by the shebeen’s local drink, the multi-talented dancers appear taken over by beat, in harmony with the players on the platform. Her choreography includes various forms of dance she has absorbed over the time, including from Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal, plus the international cast’ own vocabularies, including street styles like krump.

A celebration of resilience … Alesandra Seutin.

She was taken aback to find that some of the newer, international in the cast were unaware about the artist. (Makeba passed away in the year after having a heart attack on the platform in Italy.) Why should younger generations learn about Mama Africa? “I think she would inspire the youth to advocate what they believe in, expressing honesty,” remarks the choreographer. “But she accomplished this very gracefully. She expressed something meaningful and then perform a beautiful song.” She wanted to adopt the same approach in this work. “We see movement and listen to beautiful songs, an aspect of enjoyment, but intertwined with powerful ideas and moments that hit. That’s what I respect about Miriam. Because if you are being overly loud, people may ignore. They retreat. Yet she achieved it in a manner that you would accept it, and hear it, but still be graced by her ability.”

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