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“When you speak about the legendary singer in South Africa, it’s similar to talking about a sovereign,” states the choreographer. Known as the Empress of African Song, Makeba also associated in Greenwich Village with renowned musicians like prominent artists. Starting as a teenager sent to work to support her family in Johannesburg, she later served as an envoy for Ghana, then Guinea’s representative to the United Nations. An vocal campaigner against segregation, she was the wife to a Black Panther. This rich story and impact inspire Seutin’s latest work, Mimi’s Shebeen, set for its UK premiere.

A Fusion of Dance, Music, and Spoken Word

The show merges dance, live music, and spoken word in a theatrical piece that is not a simple biography but draws on Makeba’s history, especially her experience of banishment: after moving to the city in the year, she was barred from her homeland for three decades due to her opposition to segregation. Subsequently, she was banned from the US after marrying activist her spouse. The show resembles a ritual of remembrance, a reimagined memorial – part eulogy, some festivity, some challenge – with a fabulous vocalist the performer leading reviving Makeba’s songs to dynamic existence.

Power and poise … Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the country, a informal gathering spot is an unofficial gathering place for home-brewed liquor and lively conversation, usually presided over by a shebeen queen. Makeba’s mother the matriarch was a shebeen queen who was detained for producing drinks without permission when Makeba was a newborn. Incapable of covering the fine, Christina went to prison for six months, bringing her infant with her, which is how her eventful life started – just one of the things the choreographer discovered when researching her story. “So many stories!” says Seutin, when we meet in Brussels after a show. Seutin’s father is from Belgium and she mainly grew up there before moving to learn and labor in the UK, where she founded her dance group the ensemble. Her parent would perform Makeba’s songs, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when Seutin was a youngster, and dance to them in the living room.

Songs of freedom … Miriam Makeba performs at Wembley Stadium in the year.

A ten years back, her parent had cancer and was in hospital in the city. “I paused my career for three months to take care of her and she was always requesting Miriam Makeba. She was so happy when we were singing together,” she recalls. “There was ample time to pass at the facility so I began investigating.” As well as learning of her victorious homecoming to South Africa in 1990, after the release of Nelson Mandela (whom she had met when he was a young lawyer in the 1950s), she discovered that she had been a breast cancer survivor in her youth, that her child Bongi passed away in labor in 1985, and that because of her exile she could not attend her parent’s memorial. “You see people and you focus on their success and you forget that they are facing challenges like everyone,” says Seutin.

Development and Concepts

All these thoughts went into the creation of the show (first staged in Brussels in 2023). Thankfully, her parent’s therapy was successful, but the concept for the piece was to celebrate “loss, existence, and grief”. Within that, Seutin highlights threads of her life story like flashbacks, and references more generally to the idea of uprooting and loss nowadays. While it’s not explicit in the performance, Seutin had in mind a additional character, a modern-day Miriam who is a traveler. “And we gather as these alter egos of characters linked with the icon to greet this newcomer.”

Rhythms of exile … musicians in Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the show, rather than being intoxicated by the venue’s local drink, the multi-talented dancers appear possessed by rhythm, in synthesis with the musicians on the platform. Seutin’s choreography includes various forms of dance she has absorbed 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.

She was surprised to find that some of the younger, non-South Africans in the cast were unaware about the artist. (She passed away in the year after having a heart attack on the platform in the country.) Why should younger generations learn about the legend? “I think she would inspire young people to stand for what they believe in, speaking the truth,” says the choreographer. “However she accomplished this very elegantly. She expressed something poignant and then perform a beautiful song.” Seutin wanted to adopt the same approach in this production. “We see movement and listen to beautiful songs, an element of entertainment, but mixed with powerful ideas and instances that hit. This is what I respect about Miriam. Because if you are shouting too much, people may ignore. They back away. But she did it in a way that you would receive it, and understand it, but still be blessed by her ability.”

• Mimi’s Shebeen is at the city, 22-24 October