An unknown singer steps onto the stage at Moto Moto, a popular Afro-jazz club in Mombasa, Kenya. She mesmerizes everyone in the audience, not least a young local, newly returned from his studies in the United States. Their conversation plants a seed of something that could upend the life he thought was ahead of him—a planned marriage and a budding political career. Inspired by the myth of Marimba, the goddess who turned heartbreak into song, this new musical by Saheem Ali has been 18 years in the making. A story of love, identity, and mysticism, Goddess comes together through the unifying power of dance. —Jeanne Malle