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“When you speak about Miriam Makeba in South Africa, it’s like speaking about a queen,” states the choreographer. Known as the Empress of African Song, the iconic artist also associated in Greenwich Village with renowned musicians like prominent artists. Beginning as a young person sent to work to provide for her relatives in Johannesburg, she eventually became a diplomat for Ghana, then Guinea’s official delegate to the UN. An vocal anti-apartheid activist, she was the wife to a Black Panther. Her remarkable life and legacy inspire Seutin’s new production, the performance, set for its British debut.

A Fusion of Dance, Music, and Spoken Word

Mimi’s Shebeen combines movement, live music, and oral storytelling in a theatrical piece that is not a simple biography but draws on her past, especially her story of exile: after relocating to the city in 1959, Makeba was barred from her homeland for three decades due to her anti-apartheid stance. Later, she was banned from the United States after wedding Black Panther activist Stokely Carmichael. The performance resembles a ritual of remembrance, a reimagined memorial – some praise, part celebration, some challenge – with the fabulous South African singer the performer leading reviving Makeba’s songs to dynamic existence.

Strength and elegance … Mimi’s Shebeen.

In South Africa, a shebeen is an under-the-radar gathering place for home-brewed liquor and lively conversation, often managed by a shebeen queen. Makeba’s mother Christina was a proprietress who was arrested for producing drinks without permission when Makeba was 18 days old. Unable to pay the penalty, she went to prison for half a year, taking her baby with her, which is how her remarkable journey started – just one of the things the choreographer learned when studying Makeba’s life. “So many stories!” says Seutin, when they met in Brussels after a performance. Her parent is Belgian and she mainly grew up there before relocating to learn and labor in the UK, where she founded her company the ensemble. Her parent would sing Makeba’s songs, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when she was a child, and dance to them in the living room.

Songs of freedom … the artist sings at Wembley Stadium in the year.

A decade ago, Seutin’s mother had the illness and was in hospital in London. “I stopped working for three months to take care of her and she was always asking for the singer. It delighted her when we were performing as one,” she remembers. “There was ample time to pass at the facility so I started researching.” As well as reading about Makeba’s triumphant return to the nation in 1990, after the release of the leader (whom she had met when he was a legal professional in the era), Seutin found that she had been a someone who overcame illness in her teens, that Makeba’s daughter the girl died in labor in the year, and that due to her banishment she could not attend her own mother’s funeral. “Observing individuals and you look at their success and you forget that they are struggling like everyone,” says Seutin.

Development and Concepts

All these thoughts went into the making of the production (premiered in Brussels in 2023). Fortunately, Seutin’s mother’s treatment was effective, but the concept for the work was to celebrate “death, life and mourning”. In this context, Seutin highlights threads of her life story like memories, and references more broadly to the theme of uprooting and loss today. Although it’s not overt in the show, she had in mind a additional character, a modern-day Miriam who is a traveler. “Together, we assemble as these alter egos of characters linked with the icon to welcome this young migrant.”

Rhythms of exile … musicians in the show.

In the show, rather than being intoxicated by the shebeen’s home-brew, the skilled performers appear taken over by beat, in harmony with the players on stage. Her dance composition incorporates various forms of dance she has absorbed over the years, including from African nations, plus the global performers’ personal styles, including street styles like krump.

A celebration of resilience … the creator.

She was taken aback to find that some of the younger, non-South Africans in the cast didn’t already know about the artist. (She passed away in the year after having a heart attack on the platform in the country.) Why should new audiences discover the legend? “I think she would motivate the youth to stand for what they are, speaking the truth,” says the choreographer. “But she did it very elegantly. She’d say something meaningful and then perform a beautiful song.” She aimed to adopt the similar method in this work. “We see dancing and hear melodies, an aspect of enjoyment, but mixed with strong messages and instances that hit. This is what I admire about Miriam. Because if you are shouting too much, people may ignore. They back away. But she achieved it in a manner that you would accept it, and hear it, but still be graced by her talent.”

• The performance is showing in the city, 22-24 October