“When you speak about the legendary singer in the nation, it’s akin to referring about a sovereign,” states the choreographer. Known as Mama Africa, the iconic artist also spent time in Greenwich Village with jazz greats like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Beginning as a teenager dispatched to labor to support her family in Johannesburg, she eventually became a diplomat for Ghana, then the country’s official delegate to the United Nations. An vocal campaigner against segregation, she was married to a activist. Her rich story and impact motivate the choreographer’s latest work, the performance, set for its British debut.
Mimi’s Shebeen combines dance, live music, and oral storytelling in a theatrical piece that is not a straightforward biodrama but utilizes Makeba’s history, especially her story of exile: after moving to the city in 1959, she was barred from South Africa for three decades due to her anti-apartheid stance. Later, she was excluded from the US after marrying activist Stokely Carmichael. The performance is like a ritual of remembrance, a reimagined memorial – some praise, some festivity, some challenge – with a exceptional South African singer the performer at the centre reviving her music to dynamic existence.
Power and poise … the production.
In the country, a shebeen is an unofficial venue for home-brewed liquor and lively conversation, often presided over by a host. Her parent the matriarch was a shebeen queen who was detained for producing drinks without permission when Miriam was a newborn. Unable to pay the penalty, she went to prison for six months, taking her infant with her, which is how her eventful life started – just one of the details the choreographer learned when studying Makeba’s life. “Numerous tales!” says she, when they met in Brussels after a performance. Her father is from Belgium and she mainly grew up there before moving to study and work in the UK, where she founded her dance group the ensemble. Her parent would perform her music, such as the tunes, when Seutin was a child, and move along in the home.
Songs of freedom … Miriam Makeba sings at the venue in 1988.
A decade ago, Seutin’s mother had the illness and was in medical care in London. “I paused my career for three months to look after her and she was constantly requesting the singer. It delighted her when we were singing together,” Seutin recalls. “There was ample time to pass at the hospital so I began investigating.” As well as reading about Makeba’s triumphant return to the nation in 1990, after the freedom of Nelson Mandela (whom she had met when he was a young lawyer in the era), Seutin found that Makeba had been a breast cancer survivor in her youth, that Makeba’s daughter Bongi passed away in childbirth in 1985, and that due to her exile she could not attend her own mother’s funeral. “You see people and you look at their achievements and you forget that they are facing challenges like everyone,” says Seutin.
All these thoughts went into the making of the production (premiered in the city in the year). Thankfully, her parent’s treatment was successful, but the concept for the work was to honor “death, life and mourning”. Within that, Seutin pulls out elements 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 additional character, a modern-day Miriam who is a migrant. “Together, we assemble as these alter egos of characters connected to Miriam Makeba to greet this newcomer.”
Rhythms of exile … performers in the show.
In the show, rather than being inebriated by the venue’s home-brew, the multi-talented performers appear possessed by beat, in harmony with the musicians on stage. Her dance composition incorporates various forms of dance she has absorbed over the time, including from Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal, plus the global performers’ own vocabularies, including urban dances like the form.
Honoring strength … the creator.
Seutin was taken aback to find that some of the younger, non-South Africans in the cast didn’t already know about the artist. (Makeba died in 2008 after having a heart attack on the platform in Italy.) Why should new audiences discover the legend? “In my view she would inspire young people to advocate what they are, expressing honesty,” says the choreographer. “But she accomplished this very elegantly. She’d say something poignant and then perform a beautiful song.” She wanted to take the similar method in this work. “We see movement and listen to melodies, an element of entertainment, but mixed with powerful ideas and instances that resonate. This is what I respect about her. Since if you are shouting too much, people may ignore. They retreat. But she achieved it in a manner that you would accept it, and hear it, but still be blessed by her talent.”
The performance is showing in London, 22-24 October
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