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“If you talk about the legendary singer in South Africa, it’s like speaking about a queen,” remarks the choreographer. Referred to as the Empress of African Song, Makeba also associated in New York with renowned musicians like prominent artists. Beginning as a young person dispatched to labor to support her family in the city, she eventually became a diplomat for Ghana, then Guinea’s representative to the UN. An outspoken campaigner against segregation, she was the wife to a Black Panther. This remarkable story and impact motivate the choreographer’s new production, Mimi’s Shebeen, scheduled for its UK premiere.

The Blend of Dance, Music, and Spoken Word

Mimi’s Shebeen merges movement, instrumental performances, and spoken word in a theatrical piece that isn’t a straightforward biodrama but utilizes her past, particularly her experience of banishment: after relocating to the city in 1959, Makeba was barred from South Africa for 30 years due to her opposition to segregation. Subsequently, she was banned from the United States after marrying activist her spouse. The show is like a ritual of remembrance, a deconstructed funeral – some praise, part celebration, some challenge – with a exceptional vocalist the performer at the centre reviving her music to dynamic existence.

Strength and elegance … Mimi’s Shebeen.

In South Africa, a informal gathering spot is an unofficial venue for home-brewed liquor and animated discussions, often presided over by a host. Makeba’s mother the matriarch was a proprietress who was arrested for producing drinks without permission when Makeba was 18 days old. Unable to pay the penalty, Christina went to prison for half a year, taking her baby with her, which is how Miriam’s remarkable journey began – just one of the details Seutin learned when researching Makeba’s life. “Numerous tales!” says she, when they met in Brussels after a show. Seutin’s parent is Belgian and she was raised there before moving to study and work in the UK, where she established her company the ensemble. Her South African mother would perform Makeba’s songs, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when Seutin was a child, and dance to them in the home.

Songs of freedom … Miriam Makeba performs at the venue in 1988.

A ten years back, her parent had cancer and was in medical care in the city. “I paused my career for three months to take care of her and she was always requesting Miriam Makeba. It delighted her when we were performing as one,” Seutin recalls. “I had so much time to kill at the hospital so I started researching.” As well as learning of Makeba’s triumphant return to the nation in 1990, after the release of the leader (whom she had met when he was a young lawyer in the era), she found that she had been a breast cancer survivor in her youth, that her child Bongi passed away in childbirth in the year, and that due to her exile she could not be present at her parent’s funeral. “Observing individuals and you focus on their success and you forget that they are facing challenges like anyone else,” says the choreographer.

Creation and Themes

These reflections went into the creation of the production (first staged in the city in 2023). Fortunately, her parent’s treatment was effective, but the idea for the work was to honor “death, life and mourning”. In this context, Seutin highlights threads of Makeba’s biography like flashbacks, 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 second protagonist, a contemporary version who is a traveler. “And we gather as these alter egos of personas linked with Miriam Makeba to greet this young migrant.”

Rhythms of exile … musicians in the show.

In the show, rather than being inebriated by the shebeen’s local drink, the multi-talented performers appear possessed by rhythm, in synthesis with the musicians on stage. Her choreography includes various forms of dance she has learned over the years, including from Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal, plus the global performers’ own vocabularies, including street styles like krump.

Honoring strength … the creator.

Seutin was surprised to find that some of the younger, non-South Africans in the group didn’t already know about the singer. (She passed away in 2008 after having a cardiac event on stage in the country.) Why should younger generations learn about the legend? “In my view she would motivate the youth to advocate what they believe in, speaking the truth,” says Seutin. “But she did it very gracefully. She’d say something meaningful and then perform a beautiful song.” Seutin wanted to take the similar method in this work. “Audiences observe dancing and hear melodies, an aspect of entertainment, but mixed 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 back away. Yet she achieved it in a way that you would receive it, and hear it, but still be graced by her talent.”

• Mimi’s Shebeen is at the city, the dates