Remembering Mama Africa: struggle of fearless singer Miriam Makeba told in daring dance drama

Mimi’s Shebeen, choreographed by Alesandra Seutin, charts South African legend’s exile and ascendancy with ‘beautiful songs, strong messages and moments that hit’

“You speak about Miriam Makeba in South Africa and it’s like speaking about a queen,” says Alesandra Seutin. The legendary singer Makeba was known as Mama Africa, and the Empress of African Song; but she also hung out in Greenwich Village with Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. She was a teenager sent out to work to support her family in Johannesburg who later became a diplomat for Ghana, then Guinea’s official delegate to the UN. An outspoken anti-apartheid activist, she was the wife of a Black Panther. And her rich life and legacy are the inspiration for choreographer Seutin’s latest work, Mimi’s Shebeen, about to get its UK premiere.

Mimi’s Shebeen blends dance, live music and spoken word in a piece of theatre that’s no straightforward biodrama but draws on Makeba’s history, particularly her story of exile: after moving to New York in 1959 Makeba was barred from South Africa for 30 years because of her anti-apartheid stance. She was later banned from the US after marrying the Black Panther activist Stokely Carmichael. The show comes across like a ritual of remembrance, a deconstructed funeral – part eulogy, part celebration, part provocation – with the fabulous South African singer Tutu Puoane at the centre bringing Makeba’s songs to vibrant life.