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“If you talk about Miriam Makeba in the nation, it’s like speaking about a queen,” states the choreographer. Known as Mama Africa, the iconic artist additionally spent time in Greenwich Village with renowned musicians like prominent artists. Starting as a young person sent to work to support her family in the city, she eventually served as an envoy for the nation, then the country’s representative to the United Nations. An outspoken anti-apartheid activist, she was the wife to a activist. Her remarkable life and legacy inspire the choreographer’s latest work, Mimi’s Shebeen, set for its UK premiere.

The Fusion of Dance, Music, and Spoken Word

Mimi’s Shebeen combines dance, live music, and spoken word in a stage work that isn’t a straightforward biodrama but draws on her past, especially her experience of banishment: after moving to the city in the year, Makeba was barred from her homeland for 30 years due to her anti-apartheid stance. Subsequently, she was excluded from the US after marrying activist Stokely Carmichael. The show is like a ceremonial tribute, a reimagined memorial – part eulogy, part celebration, some challenge – with the exceptional South African singer the performer at the centre reviving Makeba’s songs to dynamic existence.

Power and poise … Mimi’s Shebeen.

In South Africa, a informal gathering spot is an unofficial gathering place for locally made drinks and lively conversation, usually managed by a shebeen queen. Her parent Christina was a proprietress who was detained for producing drinks without permission when Miriam was 18 days old. Unable to pay the penalty, Christina went to prison for half a year, bringing her baby with her, which is how her eventful life started – just one of the things the choreographer learned when researching her story. “Numerous tales!” says Seutin, when they met in Brussels after a performance. Her parent is from Belgium and she was raised there before moving to learn and labor in the United Kingdom, where she founded her dance group the ensemble. Her parent would sing Makeba’s songs, such as the tunes, when Seutin was a child, and dance to them in the living room.

Melodies of liberation … Miriam Makeba performs at Wembley Stadium in the year.

A decade ago, her parent had the illness and was in medical care in London. “I stopped working for a quarter to look after her and she was always asking for Miriam Makeba. She was so happy when we were performing as one,” she remembers. “There was ample time to kill at the hospital so I began investigating.” In addition to reading about Makeba’s triumphant return to the nation in 1990, after the release of the leader (whom she had encountered when he was a legal professional in the 1950s), she discovered that Makeba had been a someone who overcame illness in her youth, that her child Bongi died in labor in 1985, and that because of her banishment she hadn’t been able to be present at her own mother’s funeral. “Observing individuals and you focus on their success and you forget that they are facing challenges like everyone,” states the choreographer.

Development and Themes

All these thoughts contributed to the creation of the production (first staged in Brussels in 2023). Fortunately, her parent’s therapy was successful, but the idea for the piece was to honor “loss, existence, and grief”. Within that, Seutin highlights threads of her life story like flashbacks, and nods more broadly to the theme of uprooting and loss nowadays. While it’s not explicit in the performance, Seutin had in mind a additional character, a contemporary version who is a migrant. “And we gather as these other selves of personas linked with the icon to welcome this young migrant.”

Melodies of banishment … musicians in the show.

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

A celebration of resilience … the creator.

Seutin was taken aback to find that some of the younger, non-South Africans in the group didn’t already know about the artist. (She died in 2008 after having a cardiac event on the platform in Italy.) Why should new audiences learn about the legend? “I think she would motivate the youth to stand for what they believe in, speaking the truth,” remarks the choreographer. “But she accomplished this very gracefully. She expressed 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 enjoyment, but intertwined with strong messages and moments that hit. That’s what I respect about her. Since if you are shouting too much, people may ignore. They retreat. Yet she did it in a manner that you would accept it, and understand it, but still be graced by her talent.”

• The performance is showing in London, the dates