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“Discussing about the legendary singer in the nation, it’s like speaking about a sovereign,” remarks the choreographer. Referred to as the Empress of African Song, Makeba also associated in Greenwich Village with renowned musicians like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. 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 representative to the UN. An outspoken anti-apartheid activist, she was the wife to a Black Panther. This remarkable story and impact motivate the choreographer’s new production, Mimi’s Shebeen, set for its UK premiere.

The Blend of Dance, Music, and Spoken Word

Mimi’s Shebeen merges dance, instrumental performances, and oral storytelling in a stage work that isn’t a simple biography but utilizes her past, particularly her story of exile: after moving to the city in 1959, Makeba was prohibited from South Africa for three decades due to her opposition to segregation. Subsequently, she was excluded from the United States after wedding Black Panther activist her spouse. The show resembles a ritual of remembrance, a deconstructed funeral – part eulogy, part celebration, part provocation – with a exceptional South African singer the performer at the centre reviving Makeba’s songs to vibrant life.

Power and poise … the production.

In South Africa, a informal gathering spot is an under-the-radar venue for home-brewed liquor and lively conversation, often managed by a shebeen queen. Makeba’s mother Christina was a shebeen queen who was detained for producing drinks without permission when Makeba was 18 days old. Unable to pay the fine, she went to prison for six months, bringing her baby with her, which is how Miriam’s remarkable journey started – just one of the things the choreographer learned when researching her story. “Numerous tales!” says she, when they met in the city after a show. Her father is Belgian and she was raised there before moving to learn and labor in the United Kingdom, where she founded her company Vocab Dance. Her South African mother would sing Makeba’s songs, such as the tunes, when Seutin was a child, and move along in the living room.

Melodies of liberation … the artist sings at Wembley Stadium in the year.

A ten years back, her parent had the illness and was in medical care in the city. “I paused my career for three months to look after her and she was always requesting the singer. It delighted her when we were performing as one,” she remembers. “There was ample time to kill at the hospital so I started researching.” As well as reading about Makeba’s triumphant return to South Africa in the year, after the freedom of Nelson Mandela (whom she had encountered when he was a young lawyer in the 1950s), she discovered that Makeba had been a someone who overcame illness in her youth, that Makeba’s daughter the girl died in labor in 1985, and that due to her exile she could not be present at her own mother’s memorial. “Observing individuals and you focus on their success and you overlook that they are facing challenges like everyone,” says the choreographer.

Development and Themes

All these thoughts contributed to the making of the show (premiered in the city in 2023). Thankfully, her parent’s therapy was successful, but the concept for the work was to honor “death, life and mourning”. Within that, she pulls out threads of Makeba’s biography like flashbacks, and nods more broadly to the idea of displacement and dispossession today. While it’s not explicit in the performance, Seutin had in mind a second protagonist, a modern-day Miriam who is a migrant. “And we gather as these other selves of personas linked with the icon to welcome this young migrant.”

Rhythms of exile … performers in Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the show, rather than being inebriated by the shebeen’s home-brew, the skilled performers appear possessed by rhythm, in harmony with the players on stage. Her choreography includes multiple styles of dance she has absorbed over the time, including from African nations, plus the international cast’ own vocabularies, including urban dances like krump.

Honoring strength … 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 singer. (She died in the year after having a heart attack on stage in Italy.) Why should new audiences learn about Mama Africa? “In my view she would motivate the youth to stand for what they are, expressing honesty,” says Seutin. “However she did it very gracefully. She expressed something poignant and then sing a beautiful song.” Seutin aimed to take the similar method in this production. “We see dancing and listen to melodies, an aspect of enjoyment, 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. Yet she achieved it in a way that you would receive it, and hear it, but still be graced by her ability.”

• The performance is showing in London, the dates