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“Discussing about the legendary singer in South Africa, it’s similar to talking about a queen,” states the choreographer. Called the Empress of African Song, the iconic artist additionally spent time in New York with renowned musicians like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Starting as a young person sent to work to support her family in the city, she eventually served as an envoy for Ghana, then the country’s official delegate to the United Nations. An outspoken campaigner against segregation, she was married to a Black Panther. This remarkable story and impact motivate the choreographer’s new production, the performance, scheduled for its UK premiere.

A Blend of Movement, Sound, and Narration

Mimi’s Shebeen merges movement, instrumental performances, and spoken word in a stage work that is not a straightforward biodrama but draws on her past, especially her experience of banishment: after relocating to New York in the year, she was prohibited from South Africa for 30 years due to her anti-apartheid stance. Subsequently, she was banned from the US after wedding activist Stokely Carmichael. The performance resembles a ceremonial tribute, a reimagined memorial – part eulogy, part celebration, part provocation – with the exceptional South African singer the performer leading reviving Makeba’s songs to vibrant life.

Strength and elegance … the production.

In South Africa, a informal gathering spot is an under-the-radar gathering place for locally made drinks and animated discussions, usually managed by a host. Her parent the matriarch was a proprietress who was arrested for illegally brewing alcohol when Miriam was a newborn. Incapable of covering the fine, Christina was incarcerated for half a year, taking her baby with her, which is how Miriam’s eventful life began – just one of the details Seutin discovered when researching Makeba’s life. “So many stories!” exclaims she, when they met in Brussels after a show. Her father is Belgian and she mainly grew up there before relocating to study and work in the United Kingdom, where she founded her company the ensemble. Her parent would sing Makeba’s songs, such as the tunes, when Seutin was a child, and dance to them in the home.

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 the city. “I stopped working for a quarter to take care of her and she was constantly requesting the singer. It delighted her when we were singing together,” Seutin remembers. “I had so much time to kill at the hospital so I started researching.” In addition to learning of Makeba’s triumphant return to South Africa in 1990, after the freedom of the leader (whom she had met when he was a legal professional in the era), she discovered that Makeba had been a breast cancer survivor in her teens, 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. “You see people and you look at their success and you forget that they are struggling like anyone else,” says the choreographer.

Creation and Themes

All these thoughts went into the making of the production (premiered in the city in 2023). Thankfully, her parent’s treatment was successful, but the idea for the work was to honor “loss, existence, and grief”. Within that, Seutin highlights threads of Makeba’s biography like flashbacks, and nods more generally to the idea of displacement and dispossession nowadays. Although it’s not overt in the performance, Seutin had in mind a additional character, a contemporary version who is a migrant. “And we gather as these alter egos of characters connected to the icon to greet this young migrant.”

Rhythms of exile … performers in Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the show, rather than being inebriated by the venue’s local drink, the skilled dancers appear taken over by rhythm, in harmony with the musicians on the platform. Seutin’s dance composition includes multiple styles of movement she has absorbed over the years, including from Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal, plus the global performers’ personal styles, including street styles like krump.

Honoring strength … the creator.

Seutin was taken aback to find that some of the newer, international in the cast didn’t already know about the singer. (Makeba died in 2008 after having a heart attack on the platform in the country.) Why should younger generations learn about Mama Africa? “In my view she would inspire young people to stand for what they are, expressing honesty,” says the choreographer. “But she accomplished this very elegantly. She expressed something meaningful and then perform a lovely melody.” She wanted to take the similar method in this work. “Audiences observe movement and hear beautiful songs, an element of enjoyment, but mixed with powerful ideas and moments that resonate. This is what I respect about Miriam. Because if you are being overly loud, people won’t listen. They retreat. Yet she did it in a way that you would accept it, and understand it, but still be blessed by her ability.”

• Mimi’s Shebeen is showing in London, the dates