A profound, urgent call to healing.
The U.K. premiere of Mimi’s Shebeen has exploded onto the new Sadler’s Wells East stage in Stratford, and is certainly another success for the venue. Created and directed by Associate Artist of the theatre Alesandra Seutin, who has a historic artistic interest in deep, movement-focused social commentary, the 90 minute piece is a resoundingly profound lamentation on Pan-African Black struggle.
Alesandra has collaborated with KVS (Royal Flemish Theatre, Brussels) to produce a striking multidisciplinary movement piece, incorporating poetry, spoken word and music to explore the legacy of Miriam Makeba. Often referred to as ‘Mama Africa’, Miriam was an anti-apartheid activist and musician known for her relentless and widespread impact. Against the backdrop of a desecrated Shebeen, an underground space where Black South Africans would come together to escape the regime and discuss their grievances, Seutin introduces a powerful setting to explore Miriam’s life and her travels. In doing so, we are taken on a transformative journey through the impacts of colonialism across Africa.
The piece is ambitious, and executes its exploration with grace and powerful urgency. Through Mimi’s lens, a fictionalised character inspired by Miriam Makeba, we explore her journey in exile from South Africa, and are invited into the splendour and strife of her travels. As a “Shebeen Queen”, Mimi is embodied by Tutu Puoane, whose haunting, astounding vocals take us from place to place.
What is especially remarkable in the piece is its commitment to an embodied expression of complex emotions. The journey is not linear, nor is it autobiographical in the traditional sense. Through Mimi’s eyes, the audience are invited to experience a unified struggle, with striking poetic pieces, breathwork and a company of dancers who are completely in tune with the musicians. The company themselves demonstrated a disciplined, yet seemingly spontaneous symbiosis between the movement and music; the controlled unity of the ensemble, often precise and structured, is also filled with emotional abandon and a sense of complete freedom. The performers completely give themselves to the audience. The accompanying musical duo, Angelo Moustapha and Zouratié Koné, are spellbinding in their honed ability to switch between musical styles to denote each place.
The Pan-African ideas that centre Mimi’s Shebeen provide an important reminder of shared experience and humanity. The embodied approach means that we are invited into indigenous perspectives and experiences of colonialism, where moments of cultural specificity are shared without taking away from the central theme. The piece powerfully centres movement and music as rebellion, protest, community and commemoration.
The set and sound design are impressive additions to the experience, at first beginning as a site of violence and mourning, and evolving from place to place, sometimes triumphant, sometimes reflective.
The immersive sound design is well crafted, at times giving us direct clips from Makeba herself, and ending with an affecting auditory experience.